When Arkansas comes to Rupp Arena on Thursday, Kentucky has a plan for ensuring a different result than the overtime loss it sustained in the teams' first meeting.

"This time," freshman forward Marcus Lee said, "we'll box out."

Lee said it jokingly, and boxing out on a buzzer-beater is certainly not what Kentucky hopes the game comes down to.

Instead, it wants to continue the positive progression it's made since that loss to the Razorbacks, which Arkansas' won on Michael Qualls' buzzer-beating putback dunk.

"We're a much different team than we were in January," assistant coach Orlando Antigua said. "We've matured, we've grown, we're focused on every possession a lot better than we were early on."

Freshman forward Julius Randle said the gap between where the Wildcats were then and where they are now "is a tremendous difference."

"We play harder, we play more as a team, we care about each other more," Randle said. "I do remember that (first Arkansas game) being a little bit of a breakout game for us. Learning how to fight. Not stopping. Playing hard."

Antigua noted Arkansas is one of those teams "in the middle of the pack" in the SEC -- the Razorbacks are one of seven teams with seven league wins -- but have gotten better, too.

That includes on the defensive side, where Arkansas already puts pressure on the other team. Kentucky committed 17 turnovers in the team's first meeting, and might be under even more duress.

"A lot of the scrambling and stuff they're doing," coach John Calipari said, "they're even taking it to another level."

Calipari wants it to be his players' team, not his team.

"This cannot be coach-driven if we're going to be special," Calipari said. "Cannot be. It's got to be player-driven."

A prime example of that was when Randle asked his teammates, on his own power and without being assigned by coaches to do so, to guard LSU star Johnny O'Bryant down the stretch of Kentucky's win over the Tigers.

"Coach has really been getting on me about affecting the game in different ways," Randle said. "It's not (just) about scoring."

That's exactly what Antigua wants to see from his players.

"When they get to that point, where they're empowered that way and they can communicate to one another, that's what we try to get them to," Antigua said. "When Coach Cal is talking about this being their team, those are moments that it becomes their team and not a coach-driven team."

Plus, a player-driven team might have Calipari less antic on the sidelines.

"Cal is very passionate and he's coaching like he is 35, which is great," Antigua said. "At the same time, as a staff, we have to help him at times if that's the case. Making sure he's staying in the coach's box -- which is hard."

Sophomore forward Alex Poythress' performance has trended downward lately.

Over the last five games, Poythress has averaged 4.6 points and 3.4 points.

Calipari said he needs to be scoring double-digit points and getting six or seven rebounds per game.

"It we're going to be that kind of (special) team, he's got to perform," Calipari said. "So hopefully he cracks out of it."

Antigua said his work ethic has remained strong throughout the slump, and Calipari noted that nearly everyone on Kentucky's roster has gone through a stretch of bad performances at one point or another.

"We hope that he'll continue to put that work in and that he'll see the results of the work he previously had done and was having success with," Antigua said. "It's a little bit up and down, and the season is that way. You've just got to kind of manage those. Can't be too high, can't be too low. Just keep working through the process in between."