Kentucky makes big jump in ESPN's rankings following Tennessee win

How impressive was Kentucky’s win over Tennessee? It warranted an eight-spot jump in ESPN’s college basketball rankings.

Jeff Borzello updated his Power Rankings this morning and the Cats climbed from No. 18 to No. 10 following their second victory over the Volunteers, who fell from No. 4 to No. 6. As Borzello notes, the fact that Kentucky was able to beat the Volunteers by double digits given all the injuries to the backcourt makes the win even more commendable.

Beating Tennessee by 11 on Tuesday is impressive in itself; put in context, it looks even better. The Wildcats were already without Jaxson Robinson, who was ruled out before the game because of a wrist injury, and Kerr Kriisa, who has missed two months because of a foot injury. And then late in the second half, starting point guard Lamont Butler took a hard fall and aggravated the shoulder injury that kept him out of three games. Despite that, Kentucky finished the game on a 17-4 run, getting a huge boost from its role players: Koby Brea, Ansley Almonor, Trent Noah and Travis Perry. More importantly, the Wildcats have now held their past two opponents to an average of 60.5 points and 7-for-40 3-point shooting after allowing their previous five opponents to make at least 11 3s each.

The bench’s performance also got a shoutout from CBS Sports’ Kyle Boone and Matt Norlander on the latest episode of the “Eyes on College Basketball” podcast.

“Kentucky just keeps firing,” Boone said. “They just keep reloading with guards who — they expected to have Kerr Kriisa, they expected to have Robinson, they expected to have Butler. They just keep coming at you. They have a ton of depth on this team. The offense continues to hum at an elite level, shooting 12-24 from three, as you mentioned. And defensively, I think maybe it was one of those nights that Tennessee could not just make open shots but let’s credit Kentucky’s defense for making them miss those shots.”

“Kentucky needed this one in a bad, bad way, and I thought the way that they did it, by overcoming some adversity, was very impressive by Mark Pope’s Wildcats.”

Of course, Trent Noah and Travis Perry played a huge role in Tuesday night’s win, combining for 19 of Kentucky’s 26 bench points. Norlander said those performances could pay dividends for the rest of the season.

“It’s a good thing for Kentucky that, against a really, really good team, it’s good for Mark Pope and the coaching staff, the locker room, they can point to this game and say — and it’s not platitudes, it’s true — without Trent Noah and Travis Perry, Kentucky does not beat Tennessee on Tuesday night. And I thought that was an important development in the big picture for the Wildcats.”

Kentucky has made strides defensively in the last two games, climbing to No. 80 in KenPom’s adjusted defensive ratings as of this morning, but Norlander says to be a national championship-caliber team, the Cats need to be No. 35 or better in that metric. A fully healthy Lamont Butler would obviously help matters considerably, but when that happens remains a big unknown.

“I don’t think Kentucky can win the national championship. A bit too up and down. The defense is a big concern. Lamont Butler changes so much. Now, they lose him for another game, two, three, four games, how long is he going to be out? It really changes it.”

“If you’ve got that much of a discrepancy defensively, you can’t win a title. With the 82nd-ranked defense in the country, you can make the Final Four; that’s happened, but to win six games, no. They’d have to turn into a top 35-level defense by Selection Sunday and I just don’t think that’s going to happen there.”

Hear more of their takes below.