Lexington, KY (My Sportsbook) - Kyle Wiltjer scored 23 points to lead a torrid Kentucky shooting display as the No. 3 Wildcats throttled Lafayette, 101-49, in their home season opener from Rupp Arena.

Wiltjer knocked down 7-of-11 three-point attempts and Alex Poythress went 9- of-10 from the field in a career-best 22-point effort as Kentucky (2-1) bounced back strongly from Tuesday's 75-68 loss to ninth-ranked Duke in Atlanta.

The Wildcats shot a sizzling 64.5 percent as a team, their highest percentage in John Calipari's five seasons as head coach.

Tony Johnson had 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting for Lafayette (1-2), which fell to 0-9 all-time against Southeastern Conference opponents.

Kentucky wasted no time getting its offense rolling, as the Wildcats hit 13 of their first 16 field goal tries and built a 25-point lead less than 12 minutes into the contest.

Wiltjer buried a trio of 3-pointers with just over three minutes elapsed as Kentucky jumped out to a 13-7 edge. After a triple by the Leopards' Joey Ptasinski on the other end brought Lafayette within three, the Wildcats erupted for nine straight points and took a commanding 22-10 advantage when Jarrod Polson fed Willie Cauley-Stein for an easy dunk with 13 minutes to go in the first half.

A layup by the Leopards' Ben Freeland temporarily stopped the spurt, as Kentucky followed with a 15-0 run to quickly put the game out of reach.

Poythress poured in six points during the run, which Cauley-Smith capped with a pair of dunks that put the Wildcats ahead by a 37-12 count with 8:21 left before intermission.

Lafayette managed to close within 51-31 at the break and kept its deficit near the 20-point mark during the early stages of the second half, before Kentucky began to further pull away.

Poythress scored five points during a 12-0 flurry that extended the Wildcats' margin to 74-39 just past the midway point of the stanza. Lafayette would record only a single basket over the next eight minutes, with Kentucky putting together a run of 27 unanswered points at one point to take an overwhelming 101-41 lead with slightly more than a minute remaining.

Game Notes

The game was part of the Barclays Center Classic, a round-robin series of games between five programs (Kentucky, Lafayette, LIU-Brooklyn, Maryland, Morehead State). Both teams were playing their second game in the event, with the Wildcats defeating Maryland in Brooklyn on Nov. 9 and the Leopards recording a 98-94 home overtime decision over LIU on Monday ... Julius Mays dished out a career-best 10 assists for Kentucky while starting in place of Ryan Harrow, who sat out a second straight game due to illness ... Kentucky's previous best field goal percentage under Calipari was 61.3 percent, set during a 108-58 rout of Marist on Nov. 11, 2011 ... The Wildcats improved to 94-16 all-time in home openers and have prevailed in 10 of their last 11 such games.