Mark WiedmerLEXINGTON, Ky. – Maybe this was inevitable, the top-ranked University of Tennessee men’s basketball team’s 86-69 loss to the fifth-ranked University of Kentucky inside Rupp Arena on Saturday night. You win 19 games in a row, there’s bound to be a clunker here and there, especially with Big Blue in a big hurt after Tuesday’s home loss to LSU.
For UT, this might have been a really nice résumé-stuffer to lock down a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. But for the Wildcats, this game was probably do or die for everything from staying alive in the race to win the Southeastern Conference regular-season title to holding on to to their current projected No. 2 seed in the NCAA tourney.
So Kentucky, looking as sharp as it has all season, ran out to a 24-point lead in the second half. The Volunteers gamely cut it to 11 on multiple occasions, but they could get no closer in losing for the second time in 25 games and for the first time in SEC play after an 11-0 start.
“We wanted to play together as a team, not play one-on-one,” UT coach Rick Barnes said afterward. “We didn’t do that. We did things we hadn’t done all season.”
Indeed, leading the nation in assists with an average of 20 a game, the Vols were credited with but 11 against UK. They endured six blocked shots. Having hit more than 50 percent of their shots from the floor this season entering Saturday, UT hit but 40 percent against the Cats. Having connected on 37 percent of their 3-point attempts, they knocked down but seven of 25 (28 percent) against Big Blue.