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For the second time this season, Kentucky shot 50 percent from 3-point range and that helped enable the Cats to upset Tennessee.
This time it was 75-64 in Rupp Arena Tuesday night thanks to 12-for-24 shooting from long range. Koby Brea and Trent Noah both made three 3’s while Travis Perry and Ansley Almonor both made two.
That helped UK survive not having leading scorer Jaxson Robinson due to a wrist injury and then having starting point guard Lamont Butler go out with 8 minutes, 40 seconds to play after he hurt the same shoulder that forced him to miss three games earlier.
So how did Kentucky win?
“They’ve got guys that hit shots at all five positions. Credit to them, they run their offense fast, and they hit shots,” Tennessee’s Cade Phillips said. “There’s nowhere you can slack off when it comes to that and their style of offense.”
Tennessee went 11-for-45 from 3 when it lost to visiting Kentucky earlier this season. This time the Vols were 3-for-18 from long range.
“They are going to shoot enough 3’s. The 3’s didn’t beat us. I have coached in games where guys have made 20 3’s and it is the other penetration. You let their bench come in and impact the game in a big way, that cannot happen, but it did,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said.
“ We have talked enough about it. They have guys that can shoot the ball and I asked the question to the guys that we expect to shoot it, ‘Why aren’t we making ours?’ We have some guys that had good looks at it. You give them credit for making the shots.
“With all those 3’s going in, they are going to score. That is what they do. They are going to shoot it, but you cant give up the other things that we gave up along with that.”
Kentucky executed its offense much better than the Vols in the final four minutes even though Butler was out and Otega Oweh had to run the point.
“Way, way, way too many defensive breakdowns on our part. Give Kentucky credit, they did it, but we had way too many defensive breakdowns on things you cannot do there at the end of the game,” Barnes said. “Then I thought offensively we had a couple of guys get too emotional and didn’t make really good decisions on the offensive end.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Kentucky. Mark (Pope) has done a great job with this group and we were right where we needed to be and didn’t make enough winning plays on either end of the court.”
Kentucky, a top 15 team, is now 6-5 in SEC play. Tennessee, a top five team most of the season, is now 7-5. That puts the Vols seventh in the SEC and Kentucky eighth.
“I thought it was a kind of game with them playing well and doing what they are doing, I think we were up 58-55 or somewhere there and we didn’t finish the game well. Give them credit for that,” Barnes said.
“It is the best league in the country and maybe ever. It is ridiculous to be honest with you. But the good thing about it is that everything is a Quad-1 game. It helps you, obviously if you win, and if you don’t, it doesn’t hurt you as badly as it can in some leagues when you lose some games.
“It is an incredible league and I am proud of it and 10 years ago it was awful and where we are today, it is amazing and a compliment to a lot of people to get it to this point. I don’t see it going backwards too much either.”
2 Responses
Terrific article
The conference is great because there is great coaches at just about every school. Even last place South Carolina there coach was the coach of the year last year then he lost his whole roster. The same thing that we did lost our entire roster and it shows how great of a coach that Mark Pope really is and he’s done a hell a job in year one. I think Rick Pitino deserves coach of the year for what he’s done at st johns. I think they can easily win the championship with that full court press defense. You could also argue Pat Kelsey who also started from scratch with no returning players. He has Louisville tied for second in the ACC and they are on a great winning streak. I would go with Mark Pope for third in coach of the year having taken over so late and having to build a entire roster from scratch. Kelsey got a little head start on recruiting than Pope did. Pope also has the most wins against top 15 teams in Kentucky’s storied history but I don’t think the SEC has ever been this strong. Its crazy my top 3 coaches of the year all have Kentucky ties. But I would give coach of the year to Rick P. He’s 72 and honestly he’s doing a better job than I even thought he would. I bet all the power 4 conferences are kicking themselves for not hiring Pitino. He was coaching in Greece for a couple of years Iona for a couplof more year now St Johns hes in his second season. That’s 6 years he would have had to build a program. He’s built a program at st johns in 2 years. They actually look much better than Uconn and Creighton yes they lost to Creighton by one point but missed 5 free throws in the final 2 minutes they should have beaten them and they would be undefeated in the big east. They are 21-3 and they also lost to Georgia by 1 and we also lost to Georgia. Georgia has been a team that can beat anyone or lose to anyone but they look like a tournament team.
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