“Kentucky’s offense is currently second in the country in efficiency and third in the country in points per game,” Oats said during Friday’s press conference. “Coach Pope has done a very good job of kind of modernizing their offense. They’ve got three-point shooters spacing the floor, they’ve got bigs that can handle and pass, know how to make plays…They’re good. They’ve got a lot of good players, and we’re going to have to play well.”

Kentucky hasn’t lost at home yet this season and has four ranked wins overall, including three against top-7 opponents. The Wildcats display a wide variety of scoring options as six of their players are averaging roughly 10 or more points per game.

“We have looked at all their games and tried to see who’s done what well,” Oats said. “They’re doing a great job running like the five-out with the bigs that can handle. They’ve got good answers for defenses, and teams that have been able to [guard it against other opponents].”

Kentucky starting forwards Andrew Carr and Amari Williams are two of the six players averaging double figures, but they’re on the lower end of the group. This duo, who stands at 6-foot-9 and 6-foot-10 respectively, have shown to perform responsibilities different than their typical positional duties.

“They’re both IQ guys that can make the right reads,” Oats said. “Carr is a capable shooter even though it’s not what he’s looking to do––he’s got nine made threes on the year. When he shoots it looks great, in my opinion, so I don’t think we can just sit there and let him tee up threes on us. But those guys know for the most part their job is to get these shooters open. And they’re good passers. They know how to run the delayed action, as you call it with the five-out with them out handling. They’re good.

“They can pass, they can make plays if you don’t have good defenders on them and they can for sure score. Carr can get downhill off drives. They post him some. They kind of go high, low, five, four. Coach Pope’s done a really good job. They run really good stuff. They’ve got a pretty good mix of everything, and those two guys are a big part of what they’re doing.”

So, how does Oats and company shift away from a home loss that featured Alabama’s lowest point total since the 2023 Sweet 16 and move towards stopping Blue Blood Kentucky’s high-powered offense on the road?

Well, Oats said the team was off Wednesday, but “got after it pretty good” on Thursday when assessing the issues Alabama had against Ole Miss and “also had segments that strictly pertain” to Kentucky.

“[Friday] was all Kentucky,” Oats said. “But the intensity and the level of focus, I thought yesterday in practice, if we had that on Tuesday night, it would have looked a lot different [against Ole Miss]. I think that was the biggest deal. We didn’t have an intensity and focus that a game in the SEC demands, and that’s on me to make sure that it happens. I told them ‘It’s on my end, I’ll make dang sure that if I got anything to do with it, it’s not going to happen again.’

As previously stated, Kentucky’s offense is third in the country in points per game. However, each of the Wildcats’ three losses this season featured point totals of under 70 points for Kentucky. Oats is well aware of this and has “looked at all of their games” to see what opponents did to shut Mark Pope’s team down.

“Some of the losses they didn’t look like they were quite in tune,” Oats said of Kentucky. “Some teams may have been a little bit more physical with them and got them out of rhythm a little bit on that. Sometimes they just missed shots, to be honest with you. Sometimes that’s what happens in basketball when you take as many threes as they do and as we do.

“I don’t think we can plan on them missing shots. We’re going to have to cause them to miss. We’re going to have to force them to turn the ball over. We’re going to have to bring some intensity to the game that I don’t think we had on Tuesday.”

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