The first ever meeting between the two schools in the NCAA Tournament.
Rick Barnes and Tennessee roll into their third straight Sweet 16 appearance tonight, set to face a bitter rival with everything on the line. The Kentucky Wildcats will make their first appearance in the round of 16 since the 2019 season in their first year under new head coach Mark Pope.
Kentucky swept Tennessee in the regular season, winning in both Lexington and Knoxville. The Wildcats gave the Volunteers their best shot in each game, absolutely humming offensively to topple Tennessee’s top-ranked defense. By now you know they shot 50 percent (12-24) in both meetings, which is something that can’t happen once again tonight in Indianapolis.
“Attribute some of that to the actions they run,” Barnes said of Kentucky’s shooting. “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.”
Knowing Barnes, he’ll have a couple small new wrinkles to throw their way tonight. But more than anything else, Zakai Zeigler and Chaz Lanier have to show up offensively. Lanier in particular was the missing puzzle piece (3-17 combined from 3) in both previous meetings.
How to watch Tennessee vs. Kentucky in the Sweet 16
Location: Indianapolis (Lucas Oil Stadium)
Time: 7:39 p.m. ET
TV Channel: TBS
Streaming: NCAA.com
Odds: Tennessee -4.5