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College basketball rankings: Kentucky vaults into top 10 with marquee win over Miami in ACC/SEC Challenge – CBS Sports
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The most notable game of the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge was Miami at Kentucky. It was a Tuesday night showdown that was supposed to be competitive.
And it was — but only for a half.
Final score: Kentucky 95, Miami 73.
John Calipari’s Wildcats outscored Jim Larrañaga’s Hurricanes 53-36 in the final 20 minutes to improve to 6-1 on the season with the lone loss coming to Kansas. UK is up to No. 8 in Wednesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings.
“I said the first team to 80 would win — but we didn’t score,” Larrañaga said. “We played totally out of character on offense and that impacted our defense, which, unfortunately, is a weakness of ours.”
It was a weakness exposed mostly by Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard, who continues to be one of the sport’s biggest stories. The 6-foot-3 guard who was merely the fifth-best prospect in UK’s top-ranked recruiting class, according to 247Sports, took 13 shots against Miami, making eight. He finished with 21 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals. His brilliance helped the Wildcats shoot 59.7% from the field en route to a blowout.
“I just go out and try and do what I need to do — whatever I can to help my team win and make the right play,” Sheppard said. “With these dudes around me, it’s really, really easy doing that. We were hitting shots left and right and everyone was moving the ball, passing and having fun.”
The 22-point victory over a program returning three starters from a 2023 Final Four team should launch Kentucky into the top 10 of Monday’s Associated Press Top 25. The only thing between now and then for UK is a Saturday home game against UNC Wilmington that should present few issues. After that, the Wildcats will play Penn on Dec. 9 before matching up with North Carolina on Dec. 16 in the 10th annual CBS Sports Classic.
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