First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky turn its season with an upset at No. 5 Tennessee?
A look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
Kentucky (10-6, 1-3 SEC) will face No. 5 Tennessee (13-2, 3-0 SEC) on Saturday, Jan. 14, at Thompson-Boling Arena (capacity 21,678) on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville:
The game will tip off at noon (EST) and be telecast by ESPN.
Before facing UK, UT was scheduled to play host to Vanderbilt on Tuesday at 9 p.m. (EST) in a game telecast by the SEC Network.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Tennessee 158-77.
As UK head man, John Calipari is 16-12 vs. the Volunteers.
As Tennessee coach, Rick Barnes is 10-7 vs. Kentucky and is 11-9 vs. UK overall.
Most recent meeting
Kentucky’s four primary guards, TyTy Washington, Kellan Grady, Sahvir Wheeler and Davion Mintz, combined to shoot 1-for-17 on three-pointers and the No. 5 Wildcats were beaten by No. 9 Tennessee 69-62 in the semifinals of the 2022 SEC Tournament before a crowd of 20,670 on March 12, 2022, at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.
Power rankings
The NCAA NET Rankings have Tennessee No. 2, Kentucky No. 46.
In the Pomeroy Ratings, Tennessee is No. 2, Kentucky No. 25.
The Sagarin Ratings have Tennessee No. 2, Kentucky No. 36.
Know your foe
1. Since he was hired as Tennessee head man before the 2015-16 season, Rick Barnes has pretty well “had Kentucky’s number.”
The 10-7 record Barnes has compiled against UK since being hired by UT makes him only the latest Volunteers head man to emerge as a Kentucky basketball nemesis.
From 1979-89, Don DeVoe led Tennessee to 11 victories in 23 meetings with Kentucky.
Ray Mears went 15-15 as UT head man vs. UK from 1963-77.
2. Tennessee’s defense this season has just been suffocating opponents. Going into Tuesday night’s game with Vanderbilt, UT was holding foes to 33.2 percent field-goal shooting and 20.8 percent three-point accuracy.
Given those numbers, it is little surprise that opponents were averaging only 52.5 points a game. UT held Kansas to 50 points in a 64-50 Volunteers victory over the Jayhawks and Maryland to 53 points in a 56-53 win over the Terrapins.
The threshold for beating Tennessee has been getting above 70 points. The only two teams that have done that this season vs. the Vols beat them. Colorado whipped Tennessee 78-66 in Nashville and Arizona tamed the Volunteers 75-70 in Tucson.
3. Offensively, Tennessee relies on balance. Going into the Vandy game, senior guard Santiago Vescovi led UT in scoring at a modest 12.8 points per game. The only other double-figure scorers for the Rocky Toppers were senior big man Olivier Nkamhova (12.0 points), sophomore guard Zakai Zeigler (10.2 points) and freshman forward Julian Phillips (10.0 points).
