Kentucky Basketball vs. Missouri viewing info, what to watch for, and predictions

5 days ago 2

Frustration is high in the Bluegrass after Kentucky Basketball was whipped by Alabama in an 89-74 loss on Saturday, trailing by more than 20 points against a ranked team for the fourth time this season.

The Wildcats will return to Rupp for a two-game home stand this week, starting with the Missouri Tigers on Wednesday night. While the Wildcats have been struggling and are a distant reality from what many believed they would be in the preseason, the Tigers are having struggles of their own.

The Tigers have a decent record of 11-3, but played one of the easiest non-conference schedules among power schools. In their two ranked games, against Kansas and Illinois, they lost by 20 and 43 points, respectively.

That said, they just opened up SEC play with a win against the Florida Gators, who were still a top-25 team at the time but no longer are.

As it stands, Missouri provides Kentucky a Quad 3 opportunity, so it’s not a game the Cats can afford to lose as they need to start building an NCAA Tournament resume.

KenPom currently gives Kentucky an 80% chance of victory. Only two other games — Saturday vs. Mississippi State (84%) and January 24 vs. Ole Miss (81%) — give Kentucky better odds of winning, reinforcing the belief this is one of the easiest games left on the schedule.

Let’s take a look at the matchup.

Ball Movement

One common theme in Kentucky’s losses this season has been the lack of ball movement, and Alabama head coach Nate Oats bluntly called it out after thoroughly dominating the Wildcats in Tuscaloosa this past Saturday.

“When I watched them play, I didn’t feel like they moved the ball great,” Oats said. “You look, and their assist rate is pretty high. Do a deeper dive, 27 assists, 27 assists, against bye games that play a lot of zone. When they played high major teams that were really good, their assist rates were very low… They throw it into the bigs, they’re not really passing.”

In Kentucky’s seven games against ranked/high major teams this season, they have only had an assist rate above 50 percent in two, against Michigan State and Gonzaga, the Wildcats’ biggest losses by margin this season. That is only because in those games, it was due to their low offensive output.

This Kentucky team is not able to produce the level of offense that Mark Pope believed they could before the season, but ball movement would certainly raise that ceiling.

Physicality

One of the biggest areas Kentucky struggled with against Alabama was physicality, despite being the bigger team. It’s not just the Alabama game, but too often the Wildcats are beaten to lose rebounds and 50/50 balls.

“I was really, really frustrated with our physicality and effort on the glass and down low,” Pope said, after the loss. “I thought that it was a place where we had to come out here with a massive win, and we didn’t. We actually got out-rebounded, out-physicaled, even with their starting five sitting on the bench the whole second half. So that’s a massive issue for us. Our guys are gonna have to take that to heart.”

Wednesday will show if the team took Pope’s challenge to heart.

3-Point Shooting

What was first believed to be an anomaly in a Mark Pope offense has become a pattern. This Kentucky team cannot shoot from 3. In seven opportunities, Kentucky hasn’t shot greater than 25 percent from 3 against a single ranked or high major opponent this season. They have failed to make five or more 3-pointers in four of those contests.

That being said, Mark Pope’s offensive DNA includes the 3-point shot, and the Wildcats are going to continue shooting them.

Missouri is good at defending inside the arc, allowing opponents to shoot just 46.6 percent from two, a top 50 mark nationally. However, they give teams the outside shot, as opponents average 36 percent on 27 attempts per game, both ranking toward the bottom of the SEC.

Is Wednesday the day for Kentucky to have its day from deep?

Players to Watch

G Mark Mitchell 6-9, 230 lbs

16.9 PPG
5.4 RPG
56.5% FG

G Jacob Crews 6-8, 215 lbs

13.9 PPG
4.6 RPG
50.7% 3P on 5.4 3PA

G Anthony Robinson III 6-3, 185 lbs

11.5 PPG
3.5 APG
2.3 SPG

Kentucky Basketball vs. Missouri Tigers

Time: 7:00 PM ET on January 7th, 2026
Location: Rupp Arena
TV Channel: ESPN2
Announcers: Tom Hart, Dane Bradshaw
Replay: WatchESPN and the ESPN network (check local listings)

Odds: FanDuel Sportsbook has yet to release the odds for the game, so please check back for that. As far as the metrics, they all heavily favor Kentucky. EvanMiya has the most confidence in the Cats at 89%, followed closely by KenPom (80%), ESPN (79.8%), and BartTorvik (78%).
Predictions: In relation to the metrics’ winning percentages, they all project Kentucky to win by 8-to-13 points. EvanMiya has Kentucky winning 84-71, the largest margin of the group. Followed by Haslametrics (80-68), KenPom (82-73), and BartTorvik (81-73). Missouri may very well be one of the worst teams in the SEC, and Kentucky needs to come in focused. I have the Wildcats winning 83-70.