No. 13 Men's Basketball Faces No. 17 Kentucky at Rupp Arena

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – For the second straight game, the No. 13 Alabama men's basketball team faces an AP Top-25 opponent, traveling to Lexington, Ky. to square off with No. 17 Kentucky, Saturday afternoon at Rupp Arena. This will be the 21^st AP-ranked matchup between the two schools and second during the Nate Oats' tenure at Alabama.

The contest features two potent offenses, with Alabama boasting the No. 1 scoring offense in the country (91.0 ppg) and Kentucky is slotted at No. 3, scoring 87.6 points per contest. Two of the best scorers in the Southeastern Conference will square off Saturday, as the Crimson Tide's Mark Sears leads the SEC in scoring (No. 1, 20.4 ppg) and the Wildcats' Antonio Reeves (No. 3, 19.7 ppg) closely behind.

The Broadcast

Saturday's game is set for 3 p.m. CT tipoff and will be aired on CBS with Ian Eagle (play-by-play) and Bill Raftery (analyst) on the call.

The radio broadcast can be heard on the Crimson Tide Sports Network with Chris Stewart (play-by-play) and Bryan Passink (analyst) on the call, while Tom Stipe (engineer) is turning the dials. The pregame show will begin one hour prior to tipoff.

Notes You Need To Know

Since head coach Nate Oats arrived at Alabama in 2019-20, the Crimson Tide has won a league-best 60 SEC contests
Alabama is 17-21 against AP Top-25 opponents under Oats
The Crimson Tide is one win away from back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since 2012-2013
Alabama has scored 100-points in eight games this season and is the most by an SEC school since Kentucky's 1995-96 team (nine games)
Over the last five seasons, the Crimson Tide has posted 10 games converting 18 or more three-pointers in a game, the rest of the SEC has a combined five games during that span
UA has scored 80 points vs. conference opponents in seven straight games, the third longest streak in the SEC in the last 30 seasons (Kentucky had 10 in 1995-96 and 9 in 2016-17)
Mark Sears is the only Division I player that has 530 points, 110 rebounds, 105 assists and 60 three-pointers this season
Sears is one of six players in Division I and the only guard that is scoring 20 points per game while averaging 50 percent from the field
Sears has recorded 20-points or more in 16 games this season and is the most since Collin Sexton in 2017-18 (16 games)
Sears ranks No. 1 in the SEC in scoring (20.4 ppg), No. 5 in field goal percentage (50.8) and No. 6 in assists (4.1 apg)
Alabama is one of three schools (Purdue and Wright State) in the country that has two players on its current roster that has scored at least 1,700 points throughout their career in Sears (1,885 points) and Estrada (1,814 points)

About Kentucky

This will be the 21st AP-ranked matchup between Alabama-Kentucky and second under Alabama head coach Nate Oats (Kentucky is 15-5)
Antonio Reeves has scored in double-figures in all but one game and has 14 games with 20 or more points
Reeves is shooting an SEC-best 44.4 percent from three-point range which ranks No. 3 in Division I
Kentucky's Reeves (No. 3, 20.6 ppg) and Alabama's Mark Sears (21.5 ppg) are two of four players that are averaging 20 points or more during SEC play
Reed Sheppard is the only player in the country that has made 50 3-pointers, dished out 105 assists and snatched 70 steals
Sheppard is averaging 2.7 steals per contest, which ranks No. 7 in Division I
The Wildcats rank as the seventh-youngest team in the country. Only Arizona, at 19.77 years, is younger from a Power Five standpoint.
Kentucky is scoring 87.6 points per contest, which ranks No. 3 in the country

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