KNOXVILLE – If the University of Tennessee marketing department is smart, next year’s basketball media guide will feature at least one page, perhaps its back cover, perfectly split in half by two pictures.
The left side will show a picture of the Thompson-Boling Arena scoreboard with 5:46 to go in Tuesday’s first half against No. 20 Kentucky, the Wildcats up 34-13 at that moment.
Then there’s the picture that should make up the right half of the page, the one showing Tennessee’s players and fans jumping up and down with justifiable joy, the scoreboard beaming the final score: Tennessee 84, Kentucky 77.
That’s right. Over the final 25:46 against the Wildcats, the Big Orange vaporized Big Blew by a 71-43 blitz.
Technically, this wasn’t quite as remarkable as the 88-58 humbling UT put on UK inside the Boling Alley near the close of the 2012-13 season. But in terms of heart, courage, execution and determination, this was far more impressive. Especially given the fact that no one with the Kentucky press corps could remember a single time UK has lost a game it led by 21 points.
Knowing Tennessee had turned double-digit second-half leads into defeats in its last two outings against Alabama and TCU, senior point forward Armani Moore said afterward, “We were joking about it afterward. We were saying we like it better being down than being up.”
They certainly played like it. First-year Volunteers coach Rick Barnes – a close friend of Kentucky boss John Calipari – said he was just hoping to close to within 10 by halftime after the slow start. Instead, the Vols were within 42-36, a deficit that was cut in half inside the first two minutes of the second half on a Kevin Punter 3-pointer.
“It’s a long game,” said Punter, who once more led the Vols in scoring with 27, including 15 in the final half. “I knew we could score. We just needed to get some stops.”
Tennessee forward Armani Moore (4) grabs a rebound ahead of Kentucky forward Derek Willis, left, and guard Jamal Murray during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)Yet asked later what he thought when the deficit had climbed to 34-13, he said, “It was that bad? I knew it was bad, but not that. I decided I wasn’t even going to look at the scoreboard until I made a couple of baskets.”
All nine Vols who played made contributions. Not a single player who got in the game failed either to score a point or haul in a rebound.
“There was not one person who played in that game who didn’t help us some way, somehow,” Barnes said. “Really happy for our guys.”
But no one helped in as many ways as Moore, who scored 18 points, grabbed 13 rebounds, handed out four assists and collected two steals.
Observed a beaming Barnes: “Armani, without question, played the best ballgame he’s played since I’ve been here.”
What it means going forward for the 11-11 Vols (4-5 in SEC play) is uncertain. They’ve often looked this good in spurts, only to blow double-digit leads against Alabama, TCU, Texas A&M and Georgia. All of those became losses, so maybe Moore is onto something about being behind instead of being up.
“We just have to close out games like we did tonight,” Robert Hubbs III said. “We stayed strong down the stretch tonight.”
How strong Calipari’s seventh Kentucky team is is becoming quite debatable. Is it the team that beat Duke on a neutral court and lost to Kansas inside Allen Fieldhouse in overtime last Saturday? Or is it the team that’s now lost five games to unranked foes, including blowing double-digit leads on the road at Auburn and UT?
Beyond that, a Cal quote from a couple of weeks ago – “If you don’t have a post presence, you’re a fraud” – is beginning to look more prophecy than theory.
UK’s front-line talent of Alex Poythress, Derek Willis, Marcus Lee and Skal Labissiere scored 19 of its 26 points in the opening half Tuesday. The quartet – who are all at least three inches taller than anyone playing 20 or more minutes for the Orange – got 18 rebounds for the game, nine in each half.
Said Moore of UT’s 37-36 edge in rebounding: “Those are the kinds of things no one looks at. Those are the hidden keys to victory.”
A callow freshman when the Vols blew out Kentucky by 30 three years ago, Moore wasted little time picking which Big Orange win was better.
“Oh, this one was special,” he said. “You just don’t come from 21 down every day against Kentucky.”
But something else he said about this win may better explain how it came to be.
“Yeah, 21 points is a lot,” Moore said with a grin. “But it’s also just 10 baskets.”
Perhaps this team really is better from behind than on the lead.
Contact Mark Wiedmer@timesfreepress.com.