In Saturday afternoon’s battle of the post players, Kentucky came out on top.

Missouri’s Jeremiah Tilmon wasn’t in his normal spot in the starting lineup while recovering from a foot injury. When he entered the game with 15:55 left in the first half, it took the junior exactly ten seconds to pick up his first foul of the game. It was a sign of what was to come. He ended with 7 points as foul trouble limited him to just eight minutes and two field goal attempts.

Kentucky got on the board in the first half on an alley-oop to senior Nick Richards. Richards scored UK’s first 9 points and finished with 21 on 9-13 shooting to go with 12 rebounds and four blocks as the Wildcats (10-3, 1-0 SEC) beat Missouri (8-5, 0-1 SEC) 71-59 in both teams’ first conference game of the year.

Missouri hadn’t allowed more than 56 points in over a month heading into the game. The stout defense continued against the Wildcats. Redshirt junior guard Dru Smith picked up a steal on the first possession of the game, leading to a Kobe Brown 3-pointer on the other end for the first points of the game. Kentucky’s next two possessions ended with a Mitchell Smith steal and a block by Reed Nikko. The Wildcats ended the game with 13 turnovers.

With just over ten minutes left in the first half, Kentucky guard Tyrese Maxey made a layup — UK’s first non-Richards points of the game — to make the score 17-11 in favor of Missouri. The basket kicked off a 12-0 run for Kentucky, who wouldn’t trail again the rest of the game.

After a quiet first half, Kentucky sophomore guard Immanuel Quickley heated up, scoring 11 of his team-leading 23 points in the first seven minutes of the second half. While the six-foot-eleven Richards did most of his damage from inside, Quickley relied mainly on 3-pointers — he shot 4-8 from beyond the arc — and free throws, on which he was 9-9 for the afternoon. Kentucky as a whole shot 27-30 from the charity stripe.

Missouri’s perimeter shooters, however, never really got going. Dru Smith shot 5-13 from the field while Javon Pickett and Mark Smith shot a combined 4-15.

Missouri will be back in action for its first home Southeastern Conference game against Tennessee on Tuesday.

_Edited by Eli Hoff | ehoff@themaneater.com_