No. 12 Kentucky shoots past No. 8 Tennessee again, 78-73

Kentucky came to Knoxville last March and ruined Tennessee’s Senior Day, shooting a net-torching 15-for-29 from the 3-point line and leaving with an 85-81 win. Reed Sheppard made 7 of 10 threes to stun the home crowd. Justin Edwards went 4-for-7.

The new-look, 12th-ranked Wildcats came back Tuesday night under first-year Kentucky coach Mark Pope and picked up right where they left off, again unable to miss on their way to a 78-73 win over No. 8 Tennessee.

Koby Brea scored 18 points for Kentucky (15-5, 4-3 SEC), which went 12-for-24 from the 3-point line as a team. Jaxson Robinson scored 17 on four threes and Ansley Almonor scored 12 points with four threes of his own. Otega Oweh scored 14 and Amari Williams had 10.

Tennessee (17-4, 4-4 SEC), after starting 0-for-14 from the 3-point line in the 53-51 loss at No. 1 Auburn Saturday night, went 11-for-45 from three against Kentucky in the loss, the second-most attempted threes in program history.

Igor Milicic Jr. was the lone bright spot, scoring a game-high 19 points while making four threes. Zakai Zeigler had 13 points, six rebounds and four assists while surviving an injury scare late in the first half. The scoring struggle continued for Chaz Lanier, who had 15 points on 4-for-12 shooting from the field, including 3-for-9 from three.

Kentucky led by as many as 11 points in the second half, but a Darlinstone Dubar steal and transition dunk got the lead down to six with 4:40 left. After forcing another Kentucky turnover out of the following timeout, Lanier hit a three to get the lead down to three, the closest the game had been in more than 10 minutes. 

Milcic was called for his fourth foul on the next Kentucky possession, leading to two Brea free throws to get the difference back to five. The Vols missed five straight 3-point attempts after getting the deficit down to three.

Lanier made a three with 28.6 seconds left, after Tennessee’s run of 3-point misses reached nine in a row. Oweh made two free throws with 25.3 seconds left and Gainey missed a three with 10 seconds to go to help the Wildcats hang on.

Rally late in first half gave Tennessee 33-30 lead at halftime

Tennessee closed the first half on an 11-0 run to lead 33-30 at the break, after trailing by as many as eight earlier in the half. But Kentucky restarted its fire early in the second half.

Kentucky scored 20 points in the first six minutes of the second half and, by the second media timeout, had 25 points in the first eight minutes after shooting 9-for-12 from the field and 4-for-5 from the 3-point line while stretching the lead to 11, at 55-44 with 12 minutes left.

Kentucky built its early lead by going 7-for-16 from the 3-point line in the first half and 11-for-27 from the field. Robinson was 3-for-7 from three in the first half and Almonor was 3-for-5. 

Tennessee, meanwhile, was 5-for-20 from the 3-point line in the opening half, with three of the five made threes coming in the final 2:59 of the half. 

Gainey made back-to-back threes a minute apart to get the Vols back within two. Jahmai Mashack tied the game at 30-30 with 1:28 left and Lanier put the Vols ahead with his first three with 39 seconds left before halftime. 

Zeigler left the game with 2:17 left in the first half after driving to the rim and getting fouled, with his right knee appearing to buckle awkwardly. Zeigler hopped up and ran straight to the tunnel behind the Tennessee bench.

He returned to the floor with his teammates to warm up after halftime and started the second half.

Up Next: No. 8 Tennessee vs. No. 5 Florida, Saturday

Tennessee stays at home to host No. 5 Florida on Saturday, scheduled for a Noon Eastern Time start on ESPN. The Vols are currently in a run of three straight home games, with Missouri coming to Knoxville on Wednesday.

After that, it’s four road games over the next five, going to Oklahoma (February 8), Kentucky (February 11), Texas A&M (February 22) and LSU (February 25), with a home game against Vanderbilt splitting the four road games on February 15.

Tennessee announced last week that the Florida game on Saturday will be the annual Checker Food City Center game. Tuesday’s game against Kentucky drew a crowd of 22,272 was the seventh-largest announced crowd in arena history and the fourth largest at the current capacity.