‘That’s crazy.’ Herro’s rebounding performance stuns Kentucky teammate.

Tyler Herro posted his first double-double and grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds in Kentucky’s 86-69 victory over Tennessee on Saturday night. He made it sound like simply filling a need.

“The coaches emphasized that the guards had to get into the rebounding category tonight,” he said after the game. “Because the ‘bigs’ were going to be battling down low.”

When told of Herro’s 13 rebounds, PJ Washington smiled and said, “That’s crazy.”

Herro had only one rebound against LSU on Tuesday, and totaled 12 in UK’s four most recent games. Only twice this season has a UK player grabbed more rebounds. Nick Richards had 19 against Southern Illinois. Washington had 18 against VMI.

How did Herro get so many rebounds? “He was stealing some of mine,” Washington said.

Kentucky outrebounded Tennessee 39-26. That easily surpassed the Vols’ previous worst beating on the boards: 41-36 to Alabama.

UK Coach John Calipari had a simple explanation for Herro’s rebounding prowess. He attributed it to “attempting to rebound.” The more you try to rebound, the more you will rebound.

“Attempt is just effort,” Calipari said.

Tennessee was outrebounded for the sixth time in its last nine games.

“We’ve been telling them for two and a half weeks now that we need to rebound the ball better,” UT Coach Rick Barnes said. “We haven’t. And there are good enough coaches in this league that see this type of stuff.”

Hagans returns

Ashton Hagans returned to form with seven assists, one turnover and two steals in 36 minutes.

“That’s the Ashton we like to see every game,” Herro said. “It’s hard to do that every single game: go out and defend 94 feet and get eight steals.”

That was a reference to Hagans’ record-tying performance against North Carolina on Dec. 22.

To spur a repeat of that kind of performance, Calipari said that after Thursday’s practice he showed the team nine clips of Hagans making plays against North Carolina.

“Now, we don’t have this guy anymore,” Calipari said he told the players. “I don’t know where this guy went. But if we ever got him back, we would be really good. And they all laughed.”

SEC’s best?

Washington outplaying the SEC’s Player of the Year last season, Tennessee forward Grant Williams, prompted a question: Was Washington the league’s best player?

“Uh, being the competitor I am, I would have to say, ‘yes,’” he said. “I’m the best player in the SEC. I feel our team is the best team in the SEC. And without my teammates, I am nothing.”

Making a statement

We feel we’re the best team in the country …,” Herro said. “We feel like we have the best ‘bigs’ in the country.”

Missed free throw

Herro missed a free throw with 6:45 left in the game. That ended his streak of made free throws at 30. He had not missed a free throw since the North Carolina game on Dec. 22.

When asked what happened, Herro said, “I don’t know. I guess I just left it short.”

Numbers

The game marked the 17th time Tennessee had been the higher-ranked team in a game against Kentucky. UK improved its record in such games to 11-6.

Kentucky also won for the third time in five games in Rupp Arena against No. 1 teams. Previously, UK beat No. 1 Florida on Feb. 4, 2003 and No. 1 Indiana on Dec. 15, 1979. UK lost to No. 1 North Carolina on Dec. 1, 2007 and No. 1 Florida on Feb. 10, 2007.

Tennessee recruiting

Tennessee’s regular eight-man rotation includes seven players who were three-star prospects. The other player was a four-star prospect. None were five-star recruits.

That will change next season. UT’s signees include five-star point guard Josiah James, who is the first McDonald’s All-American signed by Barnes for Tennessee.

The Rivals and 247Sports recruiting services rate James at No. 14 nationally. He is the highest-rated prospect to sign with Tennessee since Tobias Harris in 2009.

Learn from LSU?

Barnes dismissed the notion of Tennessee gaining decisive insight from LSU’s victory at Kentucky on Tuesday.

“We play totally different from LSU …,” he said Friday. “We all know each other this time of year. There will not be any surprises. We have a pretty good feel. They have a pretty good feel. It’s going to get down to execution.”

Big crowd

The announced attendance of 24,467 made for the third-largest crowd in Rupp Arena history.

This story was originally published February 17, 2019 at 1:57 AM.