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Rick Barnes is now responsible for half of Tennessee basketball's wins at Rupp Arena

IMG_3593by:Grant Ramey•02/04/24•

GrantRamey

Rick Barnes
(Jordan Prather-USA TODAY Sports) Feb 3, 2024; Lexington, Kentucky, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes motions from across the court during the first half against the Kentucky Wildcats at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center.

Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi talked about it ahead of time. Tennessee’s two fifth-year seniors wanted their last trip to Rupp Arena to be a good one. They wanted to leave Saturday night with more career wins in Lexington than losses.

And that’s exactly what happened after James scored a career-high 26 points and Vescovi added 11 more, with the two going a combined 7-for-13 from the 3-point line, to lead No. 5 Tennessee to a 103-92 win over No. 10 Kentucky.

James and Vescovi now join John Fulkerson and Yves Pons as Tennessee players with three wins at Rupp. The Vols have won four times at the arena during the Rick Barnes era after doing so just four times before Barnes arrived.

Tennessee won in 1977 and 1979, the first two games in the building after it opened in November 1976, then not again until 1999 and 2006. The Vols have now won four under Barnes, after winning in 2018, 2020 and 2021. 

“I know what this rivalry means to us as a program and the University of Tennessee,” James said Saturday night. “There’s so much rich history between us. And ending it the way that I did tonight … it was great to go out that way in such a great arena.”

James, after scoring just 21 points in total over the first seven SEC games of the season, scored his career-high 26 against Kentucky on 9-for-18 shooting from the field, also setting new career highs for field goals made and attempted. He went 4-for-9 at the 3-point line.

Vescovi scored his 11 on 3-for-4 shooting from the 3-point line in 30 minutes. Zakai Zeigler and Jonas Aidoo both had double-doubles, with Zeigler going for 26 points and 13 assists while Aidoo had 11 points and 11 rebounds.

James said after the game that he and Vescovi had talked about “finishing the job here” after losing in Lexington the last two season.

“Obviously we have a long way to go (this season),” he said, “but a lot of players come through here and a lot of players lose here. And we’ve lost our fair share, but we’ve also won and I think we’ve won more than we’ve lost. 

“And it just shows, first of all how, how good a basketball players we are, because this is a hard place to plan, but (it’s) just a credit to our work ethic and you know, how far we’ve come.”

Barnes improved to 11-9 against Kentucky as Tennessee’s head coach. The went 9-35 in 22 seasons before Barnes arrived, from 1993-2015.

He’s led Tennessee to a 7-1 record against Kentucky teams ranked in the top 10, is 7-2 when both teams are ranked and 4-1 when both teams are ranked in the top 10.

Barnes has five wins over Kentucky at Thompson-Boling Arena, four at Rupp and two in the SEC Tournament. Tennessee’s 11 wins over Kentucky over the last nine seasons are the most in college basketball, four ahead of Auburn and Kansas with six each. 

It was only the third time in 254 home games that John Calipari’s team never led. It was the most points an SEC team scored against Kentucky since Arkansas had 103 in 1993 and the most at Rupp by a conference opponent since the Razorbacks scored 105 in 1992.

“A great performance for our guys tonight,” Barnes said during his postgame press conference. “You guys know how much respect I have for John and his program and his players. And we knew they were going be a really difficult team to guard. You knew they could get going.”

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