Five things you need to know from No. 15 Kentucky’s 85-81 win over No. 4 Tennessee

Five things you need to know from No. 15 Kentucky’s 85-81 win over No. 4 Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center:

1. A positive omen for a UK Final Four run? With its upset of UT, Kentucky avoided a two-game regular-season sweep by the Volunteers — who defeated UK 103-92 at Rupp Arena on Feb. 3.

If you believe in omens, Kentucky not dropping a second game this season to Tennessee could bode well for the Wildcats making a deep NCAA Tournament run.

In its entire men’s basketball history, UK has had 17 teams reach the NCAA tourney Final Four. Not one of those teams lost two games in a season to UT.

Twelve of Kentucky’s Final Four teams — including all eight of UK’s NCAA championship teams — went undefeated vs. Tennessee. UK’s 1942, 1966, 1975, 1984 and 1993 Final Four teams all lost once to UT.

So, barring another Wildcats-Volunteers meeting in the SEC Tournament, the current Cats did something significant Saturday: They avoided a second loss this season to Tennessee that, based on history, would have suggested no 2024 Final Four in UK’s future.

2. Cats deflate another ranked Tennessee team. With the win over the No. 4 Volunteers, Kentucky ran its record this season vs. teams ranked in the AP Top 25 to 5-2.

Since the start of the 2020-21 season, UK is now 11-19 vs. ranked foes. Of those 11 wins over rated opponents, five have now come against Tennessee.

In UK’s last four visits to Thompson-Boling Arena, the Wildcats have faced a ranked UT each time — and the Cats have now won three of those games, including back-to-back victories over Vols teams ranked in the top five.

3. Reed Sheppard’s monster second half. At halftime Saturday, the former North Laurel High School star had made 2 of 6 shots and 1 of 3 3-pointers.

Sheppard finished the game with 27 points on 9-of-14 shooting, 7-of-10 treys.

In a blistering second half, Sheppard hit 7 of 8 shots and 6 of 7 3-point tries. After making the first six treys he attempted in half two, Sheppard’s one miss from the corner rimmed in, then popped out.

Again showing he is one of the best all-around guards in men’s college hoops, Sheppard also had six rebounds, five assists, a block and a steal.

The only downside to Sheppard’s performance were the four turnovers he committed.

But no one is perfect.

Sheppard’s steal gave him 78 for the season. In UK basketball history, only Wayne Turner (79 steals in 1996-97) and Rajon Rondo (87 in 2004-05) have had more steals in a season than Sheppard presently has.

4. Antonio Reeves, road warrior, strikes one more time. On the day he was announced as one of 15 players who will be included on the national ballot for the Wooden Award, Reeves, Kentucky’s standout super-senior guard, scored 27 points

In UK’s 10 true road games this season, the 6-foot-6, 195-pound Chicago product averaged 22.9 points and hit 48.5 percent of his shots (81 of 167), 50.8 percent of his 3-point tries (33 of 65) and 82.9 percent of his foul shots (34 of 41).

Continuing to show an improved all-around game in 2023-24, Reeves was Kentucky’s leading rebounder Saturday with seven boards.

Reeves now has 1,115 points in his two-year UK career. That moved him past Jeff Sheppard (1,091 career points) for No. 49 on the Kentucky all-time scoring list.

Immediately ahead of Reeves among Kentucky’s all-time scorers are No. 48 Oscar Tshiebwe (1,117), No. 47. Randolph Morris (1,123), No. 46 Wallace “Wah Wah” Jones (1,151) and No. 45 Vernon Hatton (1,153).

Among players who only played two seasons for Kentucky, Reeves is now only two points behind No. 2 Oscar Tshiebwe (1,117) and 98 points behind No. 1 Bill Spivey (1,213).

Kentucky needed all that Reeves (and Reed Sheppard) could supply the Wildcats to overcome Tennessee star Dalton Knecht. The Tennessee super-senior almost single-handedly kept UT in the game, rifling in 40 points.

Knecht personally had exactly half of Tennessee’s 28 made field goals in the game and half of the Volunteers’ 12 made 3-point shots. For the contest, the 6-6, 213-pound super-senior hit 14 of 29 shots, 6 of 15 treys and 6 of 9 free throws.

The 40 points by Knecht were the most scored by a Tennessee player vs. Kentucky since Ernie Grunfeld had 43 points vs. Joe B. Hall’s Wildcats in a 90-88 UT overtime win over UK at Memorial Coliseum on Jan. 10, 1976.

5. Cats have gained a game in all-time men’s college basketball wins race. In the battle to be NCAA Division I men’s college basketball’s all-time wins leader, Kentucky entered the 2023-24 season with an official advantage of five wins, 2,375 to 2,370, over Kansas.

Of course, UK lost the all-time wins lead to KU during the 2022 NCAA Tournament and Kansas finished that 2021-22 season with a 2,357 to 2,353 advantage over UK.

Last season, the Jayhawks (28-8) added six more victories to their all-time lead over the Wildcats (22-12) and ended 2022-23 10 victories up, 2,385 to 2,375, on the Cats.

This past offseason, however, the NCAA ordered KU to vacate 15 victories from the 2017-18 season after a Kansas player was retroactively ruled to be ineligible. Those vacated victories returned the all-time wins lead to Kentucky.

Entering play Saturday, both UK and KU were 22-8, meaning Kentucky still had the same five-win edge over Kansas with which UK began the 2023-24 season.

However, while Kentucky was winning at Tennessee, Kansas was humbled 76-46 on the road at No. 1 Houston.

So Kentucky will take a six-win advantage, 2,398 to 2,392, over Kansas into this year’s postseason tournaments.

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