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Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Kentucky +4½ -110 over Kansas

9:30 PM EST. Mark Pope did not build this Kentucky team to grind out rock fights, he built it to bury you in threes, and two games in the math is working: 22 made threes, 85 points against Manhattan, 89 against James Madison, and a shooter at the centre of it all who led the entire country in three point percentage last season. Milan Momcilovic announced himself with 24 points on 6-of-9 from deep in his Kentucky debut, and he is the kind of shooter who warps a defence just by standing in the corner, because every help step toward the paint opens a clean look somewhere else. Kansas has put up pretty defensive numbers so far, but it put them up against Fordham and Middle Tennessee, two teams that could not punish a single mistake. Kentucky punishes all of them, in bunches, from five spots on the floor.

The backcourt is where this game tilts, and it tilted further on Monday. Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins both scored 16 against James Madison, giving Pope two confident ballhandlers who can run the offense, attack closeouts and keep the tempo where Kentucky wants it. Across from them, Kansas just lost the one player it could least afford to lose: starting point guard Melvin Council Jr., the Jayhawks' assists leader and the adult in their backcourt, broke his foot in practice on Monday and is out. So Kansas walks into its first real test of the season with its floor general in a boot, asking a committee of young guards to organise an offence against a veteran Kentucky backcourt that presses the pace for 40 minutes. That is not a footnote. In a one or two possession game, which is what this profiles as, the team with the steady hands wins the last four minutes.

And Kentucky has already shown it can win the last four minutes. The James Madison game was tied at halftime, the exact spot where young teams fold, and the Wildcats came out of the locker room, ripped off a 15-3 run and took the game by the throat, with 6-foot-11 Malachi Moreno changing shots and cleaning the glass inside. Kansas has spent its season in cruise control, up 30 and 44 against overmatched visitors, never once forced to execute when a game got tight. Tonight it gets tight, against a deeper, older backcourt, a shooting barrage it has not seen, and 5.5 free points in your pocket if it goes to the wire.

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