Win or Go Home Starts at 12:30 — And Mark Pope Didn’t Even Practice in Nashville

Kentucky skipped its practice time at Bridgestone Arena yesterday. Every other team playing Wednesday walked the floor, shot around, got comfortable. Mark Pope held practice in Lexington instead, at the exact time today’s game tips off, replicating the gameday routine. It is either the most brilliant preparation move of this cursed season or the last act of a coaching staff that has run out of ideas. The Wildcats are 6.5-point favorites over a 15-16 LSU team they barely survived in January — trailing by 18 in Baton Rouge before Malachi Moreno’s buzzer-beater bailed them out. If that game was a warning, this one is a final exam. Kentucky has lost five of its last seven. A 9 seed — the worst in program history. Five wins in five days to cut down the nets, or the bubble conversation gets very real, very fast. At 12:30 today in Nashville, there are no more tomorrows to promise. Just a basketball game that will define whether this $22 million roster was a disappointment or a team that simply needed March to find itself.