{"id":524626,"date":"2026-01-08T10:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/524626\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T10:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:04:17","slug":"wildcats-ugly-meltdown-leads-to-historic-missouri-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/524626\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildcats&#8217; ugly meltdown leads to historic Missouri win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kentucky suffered its second loss in conference play after <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/ncaa-basketball\/florida-basketball-news-golden-identifies-problem-from-loss-to-missouri\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">collapsing against Missouri<\/a>, 73-68, at Rupp Arena on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>It was a tight contest throughout, but the Tigers went on a 15-2 run in the last part of the second half to pull the rug from under the Wildcats and improve to 12-3.<\/p>\n<p>It was also a historic win for Missouri as it <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MrsTylerKSR\/status\/2009087018488483881\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">won for the first time<\/a> at Rupp Arena. The team was 0-9 at the famed venue prior to the breakthrough victory. Meanwhile, it was Kentucky&#8217;s first home-opening loss in the SEC since 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKentucky led by eight with 4:37 to go and absolutely imploded, giving Missouri its first win ever in Rupp Arena,\u201d posted Kentucky Sports Radio&#8217;s Tyler Thompson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Cats are now 0-2 in SEC play, losing a game they could not afford to lose. A complete mess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kentucky led by 8 with 4:37 to go and absolutely imploded, giving Missouri its first win ever in Rupp Arena. <\/p>\n<p>The Cats are now 0-2 in SEC play, losing a game they could not afford to lose. A complete mess. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AgF7CQR2Ij\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/AgF7CQR2Ij<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tyler Thompson (@MrsTylerKSR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MrsTylerKSR\/status\/2009087018488483881?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/ncaa-basketball\/kentucky-basketball-news-mark-pope-not-stutter-problem-loss-alabama\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Wildcats lost to Alabama, 89-74<\/a>, on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Mitchell led the charge for the Tigers with 21 points and four assists, while Jayden Stone chipped in 20 points, including three three-pointers, and seven rebounds.<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell&#8217;s bucket with only 36 seconds left gave Missouri the lead, 69-68, before Stone nailed four free throws to seal the memorable win.<\/p>\n<p>Otega Oweh was the lone bright spot for Kentucky, finishing with 20 points on 6-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. He also had five rebounds, four assists, and four steals.<\/p>\n<p>The Wildcats were held to 43% shooting and got dominated in the paint, 40-28. They also missed seven free throws.<\/p>\n<p>They will have a chance to bounce back when they host Mississippi State on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky suffered its second loss in conference play after collapsing against Missouri, 73-68, at Rupp Arena on Wednesday.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,4000,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-524626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-kentucky-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115858916654524849","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}