Sean Deveney

NASHVILLE - Mississippi State assistant coach Robert Kirby was sitting three rows from the floor here at Bridgestone Arena with just under seven minutes to play when Kentucky's Darnell Dodson knocked down an open 3-pointer on a pass from DeMarcus Cousins. It was Dodson's second 3-pointer in a span of a minute, putting the Wildcats up by 15 and helping send Kentucky to a 74-45 blowout win over Tennessee, putting UK into the SEC championship game.

Kirby could only shake his head.

"If they're making those," Kirby said, "I don't know what you're supposed to do to stop them."

Well, it's up to Kirby's boss, Bulldogs coach Rick Stansbury, to come up with a plan to handle the Kentucky onslaught. Mississippi State, which entered the SEC tournament in precarious territory as far as NCAA credentials went, was able to grind out a 62-52 win over Vanderbilt, earning the opportunity to recapture some of the magic that helped it secure last year's conference crown.

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"I feel like we have nothing to lose," said Mississippi State senior center Jarvis Varnado. "We just come here to play hard and play together, and we wanted to keep that focus coming into this tournament. We ain't the deepest team, but we're going to fight hard, we're going to play hard."

The ingredients for an upset today:

• Jarvis Varnado, shot-blocking machine. Varnado is the NCAA's all-time leading shot-blocker, and there will be plenty of pressure on him to control the paint. He will have to contend with Cousins and Patrick Patterson inside, but his biggest challenge will be the penetration of guards John Wall and Eric Beldsoe. Varnado averages 4.8 blocks, and he will need to top his average and stay out of foul trouble to give MSU a chance.

"When Jarvis is blocking shots back there," MSU's Barry Stewart said, "it allows us to gamble a little more on the perimeter."

• Put Cousins on the line. Cousins isn't a terrible free-throw shooter—he is at 64 percent for the year—but he struggled from the line on Saturday, going 7-for-17 and airballing two free throws on one trip. Letting Cousins get his shots at the line beats letting him get established inside.
• Let the 3s rain. Mississippi State's offense is pretty simple—they put Varnado in the middle and surround him with shooters. The Bulldogs average 25.4 3-point attempts per game, and they make a healthy 36.3 percent. Kentucky averages just 17.4 3-point attempts per game, and shoots 34.3 percent. MSU will probably need to double up Kentucky on 3s. "I'll be honest with you, I'm not embarrassed to say it," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "Just about any team we play, (when) we're making 3s, because of the way we guard, because of how big we are, because we have a post presence, we become pretty good."
• Get under their skin. The one thing that scares Calipari is the immaturity of his team, which relies on three freshmen—Wall, Cousins and Bledsoe. Tempers flared in the Tennessee game, and Calipari banished freshman Daniel Orton. If MSU is aggressive with the Wildcats, it could create some turmoil. "It's really coaching a team of 19-year-olds, there are some things that I shake my head at," Calipari said. "But we got good kids. They react to things wrong. They react to things on the court wrong at times, and that's my job to teach them without trying to embarrass them. But we've had things happen and guys say stuff, and you just shake your head."

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