Kentucky Basketball got back on track with its win over No. 14 Mississippi State on Saturday. After a road loss at Georgia on Tuesday, the Wildcats showed serious fight against Mississippi State and responded well to the things that went wrong in Tuesday’s loss. In addition to responding well to the physicality and rebounding issues, Kentucky also scored the ball very efficiently against the Bulldogs after scoring just 69 points against Georgia.

Ball movement was excellent as the Wildcats were able to counter Mississippi State’s aggressiveness with plenty of movement to keep the swarming Bulldog defense on its toes. Kentucky assisted on 21 of its 34 shots made. With those assists, Jaxson Robinson scored a season-high 27 points on 9-12 shooting overall and 7-10 from three-point range. Robinson cooked in Starkville and was a big reason Kentucky earned a Top 15 victory.

Not only did he have just 27 points, but he was one of several players who made a crucial shot in the final minutes that gave Kentucky major momentum. He coped brilliantly in a hostile environment and Mark Pope said after the game that Robinson had shown incredible concentration in the build-up to the game. The head coach has been coaching Robinson for three seasons now and says Robinson has never seen a game of this magnitude.

“That’s the best part of coaching. You just see guys grow and do things they didn’t know if they could do at times they didn’t know if they could. When you become a part of it, it’s really special. He had a really tough week, he had a lot of things that were worrying him, from basketball, everywhere came to me (Saturday) morning – We talked a few days ago and he’s been incredible with his the last two days at practice voice, its energy, its juice and its freshness. He told me this morning, he was like, “It was me.” I’m worried about having to take shots, about missing shots, about worrying about my future, and all of those things can come to this place, then you see performances like (Saturday). He’s never done that on such a big stage. He’s never done it like this in this league…against a top team on the road, but he’s certainly done it now.

– Pope on Robinson’s performance on Saturday.

It’s great to see Robinson have one of the best games of his career after struggling recently, and he did it when Kentucky had to respond and fight after Tuesday’s loss. He and the Wildcats will try to carry that reaction over to Tuesday when they face No. 10 Texas A&M at Rupp Arena.