John Clay's Sidelines

Because of a tight deadline and an iffy wireless situation here at the Humphrey Coliseum, we will dispense with the Cover it Live format and go with an old school liveblog for tonight’s Kentucky-Mississippi State. Check here or on my twitter account for updates.

• Kentucky wins 81-75 in overtime.

• Overtime at The Hump. 67-67. This is State’s second straight overtime game. Bulldogs beat Auburn in OT here on Saturday. Liggins missed a contest shot from corner at buzzer.

• Barry Stewart throws up a double-pump airball. Out of bounds. UK ball with 6.2 left.

• Patterson hits baseline jumper and we’re tied at 67. State calls time with 30.4 left. There’s 27 left on shot clock.

• State up 67-65 but Kentucky has ball with 51.8 left.

• Even though Jarvis Varnado fouled out with 5:08 left, Mississippi State still leads Kentucky 65-60 with 3:15 left. Dee Bost leads all scorers with 17, but Osby’s pogo-stick tip-in of a Bost missed three, giving Bulldogs the five-point lead, may be the game’s biggest basket to this point.

• Cousins is answering the call — get it? — scores five key points, then Pat jams and Kentucky leads 58-54 with 7:41 left at The Hump. Cousins and Patterson each have 15 on the night. Wall has 13. Bost leads all scorers with 17.

• Kentucky back in front 51-49 with 11:39 left at Mississippi State. Looks like this one could go to wire. Varnado still out with 4 fouls.

• Mississippi State up 42-38 with 15:52 left, but Bulldogs center Jarvis Varnado has four fouls. DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe each have three fouls. Kentucky has made two of 14 three-pointers. State’s Barry Stewart leads all scorers with 14 points. Dee Bost has 13.

• Kentucky missed 11 of 12 three-pointers in the first half, yet still led by three at the break.

• Kentucky up 32-29 on Mississippi State at half, but Calipari hung around so he could have a word with the officials.

• Kentucky leads Mississippi State 29-22 with 3:52 left in first half. Patrick Patterson and John Wall each have nine points. Darius Miller has seen quite a bit of action to this point, and has four points. But he just fouled on a three-point try for the Bulldogs.

• State lives by three, dies by three. After back-to-back triples, Mississippi State up on Kentucky 12-10 with 11:58 to go in first half. Barry Stewart hit the first. Kodi Augustus hit the second. Cats playing a very disjointed game thus far. Not making shots. Not a lot of flow on offense. State started slowly, but the Cats were not able to take advantage. Now the home team has some momentum.

• Lot of enthusiasm, noise and hype, but not much scoring at The Hump. Kentucky and Mississippi State tied at 4-4 with 15:45 left in first half. Had Kentucky missing five of its first six shots.

• The atmosphere here is pretty nuts. This is going to be a tough game for Kentucky. If State is as jacked up as the fans here at the Hump, the Bulldogs might be tough to beat.

• Or maybe Kentucky’s new uniforms only come in white.

• Kentucky is wearing white uniforms tonight on the road. State is wearing black unis.

• Mississippi State students are jacked up. A long line was waiting outside the Hump when I got here two hours before tip. One State fan has a cardboard cutout of John Chaney saying, “I’ll kill you.” That goes back to the Chaney-Calipari feud in the A-10.

• Officials are Mike Stuart, Mike Kitts and Michael Stephens.

• Tipoff is at 9 p.m. on ESPN.

• Had nice dinner conversation with former UK associate athletics director Greg Byrne, now the AD at Mississippi State. Greg thinks John Cohen will have a good baseball team at MSU this year, and be in position to have an even better team next season. He is also high on second-year football coach Dan Mullen, and said injuries have been a problem for the men’s basketball team.

• C.M. Newton is in the house. The former UK athletics director, whose son Martin is UK’s director of basketball operations, lives n Tuscaloosa, just a 90-minute drive from Starkville.