GAME: No. 12 Tulsa (27-6) vs. No. 4 Kentucky (21-9).

REGIONAL: East, Second Round.

TIME: Saturday, 5:38 p.m. EST.

SITE: Edward Jones Dome; St. Louis.

Kentucky coach Tubby Smith led Tulsa to some unexpected success in the NCAA tournament during the mid-1990s. Now he's hoping to stop his former team from making another surprising run.

Smith looks to get the fourth-seeded Wildcats into the round of 16 for the seventh time in eight years and prevent the Golden Hurricane from pulling off another upset in an East Regional matchup.

"Coach Tubby's a Tulsa guy," Tulsa forward Jack Ingram said. "We're going to come to play, and they're going to come to play. It should be a great game."

Smith, who coached the Golden Hurricane from 1991-95, faces his old team for the second time since leaving the program. He won the first meeting 74-53 on Dec. 20, 1997, and Kentucky improved to 4-0 all-time against Tulsa.

It was Smith who helped put the Golden Hurricane on the map in the NCAA tournament, leading them to the round of 16 in 1994 and '95. Tulsa also advanced to the regional finals in 2000 before falling to North Carolina.

While Smith won a national title in 1998 with Kentucky, Tulsa hasn't been able to keep its coaches from moving on to higher-caliber jobs. Since Smith left for Georgia, where he coached for two seasons, the Golden Hurricane have had three coaches, including this season's first-year sideline general, John Phillips.

"I've always admired Coach Smith as being one of the classier men in our profession," Phillips said. "The team thinks it can beat anybody, and I'm not going to tell them anything different."

Tulsa opened the tournament with Thursday's 71-69 upset of fifth-seeded Marquette. Antonio Reed scored 18 points, Kevin Johnson added 14 and Greg Harrington 12 for the Golden Hurricane.

Kentucky was unimpressive late in the season, dropping three of its final six games, including an upset loss to South Carolina in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference tournament.

The Wildcats, however, put together one of their best games of the season to open the tournament, beating Valparaiso 83-68 on Thursday. Keith Bogans had 21 points to lift Kentucky to a 12th straight first-round victory.

"This is the consistency we needed," Smith said. "I thought we played as well as we have in a long time."

Bogans, whose scoring average dropped from 17.5 as a sophomore to just 10 per game this season, made 4-of-5 from 3-point range. The junior forward also had a team-high six rebounds and three assists.

The production from Bogans, as well as the combined 23 points from Marquis Estill and Jules Camara, helped make up for an unimpressive performance by Tayshaun Prince.

Kentucky's leading scorer during the regular season, Prince was limited to 13 points as he hit just 5-of-14 from the field and missed all six of his 3-point attempts.

PROBABLE STARTERS: Tulsa - F Charlie Davis (8.2 ppg, 6.8 rpg), F Johnson (14.4 ppg, 5.4 rpg), G Dante Swanson (11.8 ppg, 3.8 rpg), G Reed (10.8 ppg, 4.1 apg), G Harrington (12.9 ppg, 5.2 apg). Kentucky - F Prince (16.7 ppg, 6.3 rpg), F Gerald Fitch (9.4 ppg, 5.7 rpg), F Camara (5.9 ppg, 3.8 rpg), G Cliff Hawkins (7.1 ppg, 4.2 apg), G Bogans (11.2 ppg, 4.4 rpg).

HOW THEY GOT HERE: Tulsa - At-large bid, Western Athletic Conference. Kentucky - At-large bid, Southeastern Conference.

ALL-TIME TOURNAMENT RECORD: Tulsa - 11-12, 14 years. Kentucky - 88-37, 43 years.

The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.