Tennessee Basketball will take on the Kentucky Wildcats in Rupp Arena this Saturday night in an SEC rivalry clash. It’s the second of two regular-season matchups for the two border foes, with the first one resulting in a Kentucky win in Knoxville in January.
Tennessee jumped out to a 16-point lead in the first half of that game. Kentucky kept clawing, though, and eventually cut the Vols’ lead to 11 going into the halftime break. The Wildcats never went away and kept attacking, eventually taking the lead for the first time in the game with 34 seconds remaining in the second half. The Vols missed their chance to win the game at the end, and the Wildcats had officially stolen one in the Food City Center.
“I remember we were up a lot. They came back, fought hard to get back, and we ended up losing,” Tennessee guard Amari Evans said on Friday.
The Vols are determined to not let that happen again.
“We need to play a full 40 minutes,” Evans said. “I feel like we probably played 27, 28 minutes last game and they took over at the end of the game. We can’t let that happen. We’ve just got to play hard for the full 40 and hopefully we come out on top at the end.”
That Kentucky loss pushed the Vols to 2-3 in SEC play at the time of the game. Since then, Tennessee has rattled off four straight wins, including two games on the road. Tennessee beat Alabama and Georgia in their home arenas, and then returned to Knoxville to beat Auburn and Ole Miss. The Vols have been playing better basketball in the last two weeks, but perhaps that rivalry loss sparked something for the team.
“Well, obviously, a little more experienced because of just playing games and starting to get more guys involved,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said about how his team is different from the last matchup on Friday. “More guys, I think, are really finding their role, what they can do, and how they can help us. And a little more balance than we had back then.”
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Tennessee and Kentucky are both in the top six of the SEC standings, with every team looking up to Texas A&M with a 7-1 conference record. The Wildcats are 0.5 games behind the Aggies and the Volunteers are one game back. Saturday’s primetime game in Lexington is a marquee matchup that’ll have a major impact on where these two teams are at in the SEC race.
As previously mentioned, Tennessee has gone 4-0 since that loss. Kentucky has been on a similar track. The Wildcats are 4-1 since that game with wins over Texas, Ole Miss, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, only losing to Vanderbilt during that stretch. Both teams are a combined 8-1 since that first matchup.
Tennessee is a point underdog heading into Saturday’s game at Rupp Arena. The game will be played at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Here’s a look at the odds for the contest:
