Kentucky ends regular season on a high note. Cats knock off No. 4 Tennessee in Knoxville.
Kentucky is going into tournament time off its biggest win of the college basketball season.
The No. 15-ranked Wildcats went into Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday and knocked off No. 4 Tennessee 85-81, turning the tables on a team that had already clinched the outright SEC regular-season title three days earlier.
The victory for the Wildcats, their fifth in row to end the regular season, clinched a double-bye in the SEC Tournament, which means UK won’t have to play its first postseason game until Friday’s quarterfinals.
Antonio Reeves, Reed Sheppard and Justin Edwards all hit big shots throughout the afternoon. Reeves and Sheppard finished with 27 points, while Edwards had 16 points.
After a sloppy first half, the 20 minutes that followed provided plenty of highlights.
John Calipari was given a coaches’ box warning midway through the second half and then hit with a technical foul a couple of minutes after the warning. Kentucky was leading 54-46 at the time of the technical. Jordan Gainey missed the foul shot for Tennessee, and Sheppard and Edwards hit back-to-back 3-pointers right after that.
The two 3s gave UK a 60-46 lead and forced Rick Barnes to call a timeout with 11:44 left.
As the two teams headed toward their respective benches, a “Go Big Blue!” chant broke out in Thompson-Boling Arena despite there being just a handful of fans in blue in attendance.
The Cats were still up 14 a short time later, when Tennessee unleashed a 9-0 run in just one minute, electrifying the home crowd and forcing Calipari to call a timeout — UK’s lead narrowed to 68-63 — with 7:29 left.
A few minutes later, Sheppard hit a pair of 3-pointers, the first with the shot clock about to expire and the second to give Kentucky an 80-69 lead with just 2:35 left.
The Cats held on from there, though Tennessee made it a one-possession game at the end after being down 11 with less than a minute left.
SEC player of the year candidate Dalton Knecht led Tennessee with 40 points.
Anyone tuning in expecting a repeat of the high-scoring first meeting between these two teams — when the Vols beat the Cats 103-92 in Lexington last month — was sorely disappointed.
Both sides struggled for much of the first half, with Tennessee missing eight of its first nine shots from the field and the Wildcats also having trouble finding the basket. Even with the Vols misfiring in the opening minutes, Kentucky couldn’t get much of a lead out of it. UT scored just four points on its first nine possessions, but Zakai Zeigler hit a 3-pointer — and was fouled by Rob Dillingham — to tie the game at 7-all on its 10th possession of the afternoon.
That was Dillingham’s second foul, and it came with 14:27 still remaining in the half. He didn’t play again until after halftime.
Neither team had a lead of more than three points until Reeves hit a 3-pointer to put the Cats up 18:12 with 10:13 left in the half. That was the third consecutive 3-pointer for Kentucky, which went on a 9-0 run in a matter of 68 seconds. The Cats led for the rest of the half.
UK’s biggest lead before halftime was 11 points, coming on a 3-pointer by Edwards to put the Cats up 31-20 with 2:45 remaining before halftime. Edwards scored 13 points and made three 3-pointers in the first half.
Tennessee came back to narrow UK’s lead to 33-29 at the break. The Cats had four players with two fouls by the end of the first half: Dillingham, Adou Thiero, Tre Mitchell and Zvonimir Ivisic.
Kentucky was called for 11 fouls and shot just two free throws in the first half. The Vols were called for six fouls and went 9 of 13 from the foul line. UK outscored UT 32-20 while the ball was in play.
Tennessee went just 8 of 32 (25.0%) from the field in the first half, and the Vols didn’t hit their first 2-pointer — a jumper by Knecht — until more than eight minutes had run off the clock.
Josiah-Jordan James hit a 3-pointer on UT’s first possession of the second half to narrow UK’s lead to 33-32, but that was as close as the Vols would get.
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