KNOXVILLE – After the worst week of its season and 14 minutes that weren’t much better, nobody could have seen what Tennessee had coming.
The Volunteers followed up brutal road losses at Alabama and TCU by falling down by 21 points against No. 20 Kentucky at Thompson-Boling Arena on Tuesday night.
Then the switch flipped.
Tennessee quickly erased its deficit, took control in the second half and made the key plays in crunch time to notch a stunning 84-77 win against the Wildcats.
Kevin Punter Jr. scored 27 points to lead Tennessee (11-11, 4-5 SEC), and Armani Moore stuffed the box score with 18 points, 13 rebounds and four assists.
Detrick Mostella chipped in 13 points, and freshman Admiral Schofield had 11 points and six rebounds as Rick Barnes, Tennessee’s first-year coach, beat the Vols’ biggest basketball rival at the first time of asking.
Jamal Murray scored 21 points to lead Kentucky (16-6, 6-3), which had won three of its last four games by double digits and took Kansas to overtime on the road on Saturday, not long after Tennessee was outscored by 26 points in the second half of a loss at TCU.
Tennessee was on the verge of getting run out of the arena by the Wildcats, who jumped out to an 18-8 lead and went on a 16-2 run to stretch the lead to 21 points (34-13) at the 5:46 mark of the first half.
Then the Vols, who earlier went on a scoring drought of three minutes and 50 seconds and didn’t make a field goal for one six-minute, 51-second stretch, suddenly came to life and scored 10 straight points as Detrick Mostella hit a 3-pointer and Punter converted a three-point play.
Shembari Phillips hit a wide open 3 to make it 38-30 with 1:37 to go in the half, and Punter then capped a 19-4 run to make it a six-point game.
The Vols outscored Kentucky 23-8 in the final 5:32 of the first half and trailed 42-36 at the break.
The two rivals traded baskets to open the second half, and Mostella hit a 3 that caused the Thompson-Boling Arena crowd to erupt and gave Tennessee its first lead of the game at 57-56 with 14:02 to go.
Kentucky answered with back-to-back 3s by Ulis and Derek Willis, but Tennessee then went on a 12-3 run to take its largest lead on Phillips’s layup that made it 68-63 with 7:40 left.
Leading 71-70, Mostella flew in for an acrobatic reverse layup, and Punter hit a transition 3 following a steal to make it 76-70 with 4:18 left.
Marcus Lee’s tip-in made it 77-74 with two minutes left, but Robert Hubbs dunked off an inbounds pass from Punter, Ulis missed the front end of a one-and-one and Moore tracked down a missed 3.
Murray’s 3 with 31 seconds left gave Kentucky some hope, but Hubbs knocked down two free throws and Moore grabbed a rebound amid a scramble and called timeout to seal the win.
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.