LEXINGTON, Ky. – You could argue that neither side got what it wanted from Thursday night’s Tennessee-Kentucky basketball game inside UK’s Rupp Arena.
The home-court Wildcats probably didn’t get the blowout they surely desired to properly avenge their seven-point loss at Tennessee a couple of weeks ago, the one in which they stunningly blew a 21-point first-half lead.
But at least Big Blue won by an 80-70 final score and is a full game ahead of the rest of the Southeastern Conference with its 10-3 league mark.
For the Vols, Thursday’s outcome was just more of the painful same, the little team that can’t win away from home dropping its sixth SEC road game in seven tries.
“We didn’t play great tonight,” said winning coach John Calipari. “These kids aren’t robots.”
Countered first-year UT coach Rick Barnes: “We probably should have put a small lineup out there. That’s my fault.”
There is dark humor in that, for the Vols go small every night, Thursday being no exception. Barnes started three guards and 6-foot-4 forward Armani Moore against the Cats, his lone nod to the desperate need for his height-challenged team to get bigger being the addition of 6-9 freshman Kyle Alexander.
Though Alexander didn’t corral a single rebound in the opening half, UT did somehow win the backboards battle over the first 20 minutes by a 21-20 count. The Vols also trailed by only six on the scoreboard (36-30), which was the same margin they trailed by in Knoxville.
Unlike at Knoxville, however, Kentucky regrouped at halftime. Over a blistering, withering, game-deciding three minutes and 51 seconds at the start of the final period, UK went on an 18-6 run fueled by three 3-point buckets and two three-point plays by freshman guard Jamal Murray.
“They made a lot of 3s,” UT senior guard Kevin Punter said of the Cats’ 11 triples. “They shot it well.”
Punter certainly has shot it better than he did against the Cats, as he hit just four of 14 shots despite finishing with 19 points. A sore ankle that had him limping badly after the game surely contributed to that total, but it’s also likely that a season in which he’s averaged close to 34 minutes on the court per game hasn’t helped.
Even his counterpart in blue – SEC player of the year Tyler Ulis – looked like he might be beginning to show the wear and tear of his 36.4 minutes per game after hitting just three of 15 field-goal tries to finish with 11 points and nine assists.
But despite its coach claiming it didn’t play great, Kentucky did win its fourth straight game by 10 or more points heading into Saturday evening’s showdown at Texas A&M.
On the other end of the spectrum is UT, which has lost five of its last seven heading into Saturday night’s visit from LSU, which is all alone in second place in the SEC with a 9-4 league record.
Seeing senior Armani Moore’s team highs in points (21), rebounds (11), blocks (2) and assists (2, which tied with Devon Baulkman), Barnes said of Moore and Punter: “We need more guys. We put so much on them.”
And the wear of that outsized responsibility is starting to show. The Vols’ last four losses – all away from home – all have come by double-figure margins. Moore and Punter are both averaging 32 or more minutes a game, and Moore is doing it nightly against players who normally stand four or more inches taller than him.
“I don’t necessarily feel pressure to deliver big numbers every night,” Moore said afterward. “We just need to have everybody start contributing something every game. It doesn’t have to be points. It could be a rebound, a steal, a blocked shot. But we need something from everybody on this team if we’re going to start winning again.”
Most every team needs everybody, or at least more than a few people, if they expect to win.
Good as Kentucky’s dynamic backcourt duo of Ulis and Jamal Murray (28 points, nine rebounds) are regularly, it was homegrown Wildcat Derek Willis who provided separation against the Vols by scoring a career-high 25 points while hitting seven 3-pointers.
When UT beat UK in Knoxville, Vols freshman Admiral Schofield had 11 points and eight rebounds and Detrick Mostella had 13 points. Inside Rupp Arena, Schofield had four points and Mostella two. No Vol except Moore and Punter totaled more than seven.
Said Barnes: “(Armani) and Kevin need more consistent help from their teammates.”
The bigger problem for Tennessee may be what those teammates are going to do a year from now when those two seniors will no longer be around to try to bail them out.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com