In boxing eeking out victories by points is a trait common to all fighters but what separates the greats from the ham and eggers is the ability to bring the thunder and leave opponents crumpled on the canvas.

So it is in college basketball as well.

Average teams survive. Good teams do just enough to win by slightly comfortable margins. Great teams seize the moment and impose their will on the way to an overwhelming triumph.

So far this season Kentucky straddled the line between average and just good enough.

Tuesday night they flashed the ability to be great.

The Cats extended a slight 41-39 edge at the 13:39 mark of the second half to modest 8-point margin, 51-43, with the clock reading 10:41.

John Calipari’s team seemed poised to park the bus and let the game go to a judge’s decision, and then in an instant, the Cats swarmed the Bulldogs and outscored them 25-12 in the game’s closing stretch.

Unlike the pugilist of old, John Calipari’s team suffocated their guests from the SEC’s west and forced them out of their usual glacial pace.

“I liked their defense, in particular, they really caused us a lot of problems,” said Mississippi State head coach Ben Howland. ”I thought they had us playing fast and had us playing to where we were in a hurry rather than being in control offensively.”

The frenzied pace forced the Bulldogs into several ill-advised shots from deep behind the 3-point line. They finished 3-of-20, six treys below their season average.

The Cats also held the Bulldogs without a point for the final three minutes of the contest

Kentucky players agreed with Howland’s assessment.

“Our defense. We got stops and got out in transition,” said UK sophomore forward P.J. Washington on the subject of UK’s game-clinching blitz. “We score really well in, and it comes down to getting stops.”

Turnovers leading into easy scores keyed several UK runs this season. However, they were consistently infrequent due to the team’s tendency to space out on defense for minutes at a time.

They key to the team's transformation is simple in the words of Washington.

"Communication and knowing someone is going to have your back. In the beginning of the year we were playing our own man, and now we are playing each other's man," he said.

Talking and having a teammate's back are tenets of the Kentucky philosophy under Calipari, and if the Cats keep honing those skills their defense will be vital to fueling their knockout power come the championship rounds in March.