No. 22 Kentucky (18-7, 8-4) handed No. 13 Auburn (20-6, 9-4) its first home loss of the season, with a 70-59 victory at Neville Arena.

The Wildcats were led by Antonio Reeves, the game’s top scorer with 22 points on 8-of-20 shooting from the field, including 3 triples in 34 minutes. Auburn lost Jaylin Williams to a knee injury with 10:40 to go, down 51-44.

UK dominated second-chance points (20-10) and points in the paint (36-26) while notching a double-digit advantage in points off turnovers (23-10).

Here are three quick takeaways from the big win for John Calipari’s squad:

Starting strong and weathering the storm

Auburn fans started camping out more than two days before tip-off. ESPN’s College GameDay came to The Plains to spotlight The Jungle environment. Kentucky was not fazed.

The Wildcats jumped out to an early 11-2 lead and never looked back. It was 39-29 at halftime, a margin boosted by Kentucky’s 15-0 advantage of points off turnovers.

The best Auburn could do in the second half was trim the deficit to 5 points a couple of times. It was 49-44 with 11:53 to go, and back to 60-46 Cats by the 7:30 mark.

Auburn did not make a field goal in the final 3:30.

Defensive effort takes the crowd out of the game

How do you silence one of the SEC’s toughest environments? Keep the home team from lighting up the scoreboard.

Auburn averages 83.1 points per game, and like most teams, the Tigers typically play better at home. Auburn’s three lowest outputs of the season had come on the road. Saturday is the first time in the 2023-24 season that AU was held under 60 points at home.

AU shot 31% on field-goal attempts. UK won the boards 39-36.

SEC standings shakeup

Alabama remains atop the conference standings at 10-2. Tennessee is one game back at 9-3, and then there is a run of four-loss squads.

Kentucky, South Carolina, Auburn and Florida make up the next group behind Tennessee. South Carolina and Auburn are ahead of Kentucky and Florida in the win column, having played an extra conference game.

Currently, we have a group of four teams vying for seeds No. 3 and No. 4 in the SEC Tournament. The top four seeds get a double bye in the tournament, while seeds No. 5 and No. 6 play on day two, after the bottom four seeds make up the first round.

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