Kentucky's History at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center

Your University of Kentucky Wildcats are off to a new city, Food City, for their next SEC road challenge. The eighth-ranked Tennessee Vols await in Knoxville, where recent history has been good for Kentucky in this spot.

Before the game tips off, we look back at all of the history between Kentucky and Tennessee in the Vols’ home arena. Only the games Kentucky won, though, because we don’t need any negativity heading into Tuesday night.

Kentucky is unbeaten at Food City

Technically, the Wildcats head to Food City Center with a 1-0 record. Last year, Antonio Reeves and Reed Sheppard scored 27 points each in Kentucky’s 85-81 win over the Vols in the Food City Center’s debut season. Unfortunately, it was the last win for that Kentucky team because it came in the regular season finale before a 0-2 run in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments. Still, the record is the record, and Kentucky is unbeaten in Food City.

We’ll include all Thompson-Boling Arena games for the remainder of this exercise.

Best Performance: Jodie Meeks

Jodie Meeks had the most memorable individual performance at Thompson-Boling Arena. Meeks’ day is arguably the best performance in any arena by a Wildcat, considering his 54 points on January 13, 2009, are still the school’s record for points in a single game.

Meeks broke Dan Issel’s 39-year-old record by hitting 15 of 22 shots from the field, including a school-record 10 made 3-pointers on 15 tries. He set the new record at the free throw line, where he was 14 of 14 in UK’s 90-72 win over the Vols.

Second-Best Performance: Tayshaun Prince

Before Meeks, Tayshaun Prince had Kentucky’s best game in Thompson-Boling Arena. Prince dropped 30 on the Vols in 2001, hitting six 3-pointers with only one miss. He went 9-13 from the field and made all six free throws to set a new career high in scoring in UK’s 103-95 win. The headline on early-internet ESPN.com read, “Prince is King.”

We can’t leave Kenny Walker out of this discussion. Walker scored 32 points with nine rebounds in Knoxville’s old Stokely Center, which was replaced by Thompson-Boling and eventually demolished. Walker led UK to a win in 1986, snapping a run of 12 losses in 13 trips to the Stokely Center.

Win #1000

Another one from the old Stokely Center that’s worth mentioning before we keep our focus on Thompson-Boling (we’re making up the rules as we go). In January 1969, Kentucky became the first school to win 1,000 games by beating Tennessee in Knoxville. Dan Issel scored 21, Larry Steele 18, and Mike Pratt 17 in the 69-66 win over Ray Mears’ Vols. When Kentucky returned home, a celebration was held in Lexington before the following game, which included a cake with 1,000 candles.

Widest Margin of Victory

The scoreboard has never been uglier for the Vols than in 1996 when Rick Pitino’s eventual national champion Wildcats beat Tennessee by 40 in Thompson-Boling Arena. Eight players scored between 7 and 13 points in a balanced offensive attack, while the defense shut down the Vols in Knoxville. Tennessee shot 37% from the field with 20 turnovers in the loss.

Most Assists

Wayne Turner scored 17 points in Kentucky’s 1998 win in Knoxville. However, it was his 11 assists, a career-high, that turned heads in the 85-67 win. Led by Turner’s double-double and a game-high 20 points from Scott Padgett, who was ejected, Kentucky ran away with a fun January win in Thompson-Boling, a couple of months shy of the NCAA Tournament championship.

Best Chest Bump

If you’re listing the best chest bumps in Kentucky Basketball history, it’s a list of one: Tubby Smith and Brandon Stockton at Tennessee in 2006. Smith and his senior guard met at midcourt for a chest-to-chest celebration after the buzzer sounded on Kentucky’s two-point win. Shortly before the bump, Stockton made the defensive play of the game with a late steal.

Back-to-back upsets against a top-five team

Kentucky was a heavy underdog in its last two trips to Knoxville. In 2023, Tennessee was ranked fifth in the country and laying 11.5 points to Kentucky when Antonio Reeves (18 points) and CJ Fredrick (13 points) stepped up with Oscar Tshiebwe (15 points and 13 rebounds) to help the unranked Wildcats pull off the upset. Kentucky was without point guard Sahvir Wheeler due to injury, and future NBA guard Cason Wallace battled injury and foul trouble throughout the game. Even Adou Thiero filled in at point guard, yet Kentucky got the win.

Then, last season, Kentucky opened as a heavy underdog again, getting 9.5 points in the regular season finale in Knoxville. Reeves and Reed Sheppard broke in the new Food City Center with 27 points each in the upset of the fourth-ranked Vols. Kentucky hit 15 of 29 shots from 3, with Sheppard responsible for seven of the makes. Dalton Knecht scored 40 in the loss.

Other Kentucky memories in Thompson-Boling Arena

— Derrick Miller scored 23 points in Kentucky’s first-ever win in Thompson-Boling Arena.

— A young Scott Padgett had a career day at Tennessee in 1997, his sophomore season. Padgett scored a career-high 24 points for the defending champs in a 74-64 win in Knoxville.

— In 2004, Cliff Hawkins forced overtime by hitting a game-tying 3 with 16 seconds to go. Kentucky won in overtime, 69-68.

— A year after Hawkins’ heroics, Chuck Hayes‘ trip to a nearby hospital inspired Kentucky to another win in Thompson-Boling. Bobby Perry and Sheray Thomas stepped up when Hayes left with a broken nose halfway through UK’s 84-62 win.

— Jules Camara hit a couple of big shots late in Kentucky’s 2003 win against Tennessee. The senior forward scored six straight down the stretch, including the go-ahead jumper with under a minute left.

— Kentucky’s 2020-21 team didn’t have many highlights in its nine-win season. However, the worst year in school history still managed to find a win against 19th-ranked Tennessee in Knoxville, and by a big margin. Kentucky won, 70-55, led by Isaiah Jackson with 16.