50% from Deep: How Kentucky Swept Tennessee with 3-Point Shooting

DrewFranklinKSR

kentucky-underdog-tennessee — Feb 11, 2025; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Koby Brea (4) shoots the ball against Tennessee Volunteers guard Jahmai Mashack (15) during the second half at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

Five times in the regular season, Kentucky shot 50% or better from beyond the 3-point line, leading to wins in all five games. Two of those instances came against Tennessee. Coincidentally, the Wildcats made 12 of 24 tries in each victory over the Vols, first in Knoxville and then again in Lexington, for a collective 24 of 48 from 3 (50.0%) in the series sweep.

Tennessee, on the other hand, was ice cold in the two Kentucky games. First, the Vols took 45 shots from 3, the second-most in a single game in school history, only to make 24.4% of them (12-45) in the loss in Knoxville. Knowing that 3-point shooting killed them at home, Tennessee took 18 in the rematch but made only three of the 18, which resulted in a worse shooting percentage (16.7%) in the second loss.

Jan. 28, Knoxville: Kentucky 12-24 (50.0%); Tennessee 12-45 (24.4%)
Feb. 11, Lexington: Kentucky 12-24 (50.0%); Tennessee 3-18 (16.7%)

Beyond the losses to the Wildcats, Tennessee was elite in guarding the 3-point line all season. The Vols held opponents to 28.3% shooting from outside, ranked as the best in the SEC and third in the country behind only Michigan State and San Francisco.

So how did Kentucky make half of its attempts in two games against the Vols’ elite 3-point defense? Looking ahead to the third meeting, Rick Barnes said, “Attribute some of that to the actions they run, and we didn’t defend it. And they made tough ones, too. And they had the ability to do that.

“You can guard them, but when you let a team get confident, get rhythm, it’s even harder to break it. But I think that you’ve got to give them credit for their schemes and whether it was we didn’t do a good enough job getting back in transition, finding people, not on edge enough with the zoom actions they run or ball screen, you can name it. They got it done and we didn’t.”

Koby Brea: “We’re going to continue to do what we do.”

Feb 11, 2025; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Kentucky Wildcats guard Koby Brea (4) shoots the ball over Tennessee Volunteers guard Jahmai Mashack (15) during the second half at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Prather-Imagn Images

Koby Brea– who made three 3s in each Tennessee game and didn’t miss against the Vols in Lexington- also addressed his team’s hot hands in the rivlary.

Get the On3 Top 10 to your inbox every morning

By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.

“I think the coaches do a really good job of scouting the way they guard,” he said in Kentucky’s pregame press conference. “They’ve been a really good defensive team, but I feel we’ve seen their defense a couple times this year, teams that do similar things. So we kind of just do what we do every game and just scout them and work on the things that they’re good at and how we’re able to use that against them.”

Brea added that he and Kentucky expect Tennessee will take a new approach in defending the perimeter. Still, the Wildcats will be ready for whatever the Vols throw their way.

“We’re going to continue to do what we do. We work on every type of defense guarding us. Just gotta continue to do us.”

Kentucky will need another hot-shooting game to advance to the Elite Eight. Another game of bricks from the Vols could be a big help, too.