Out-Tennessee Tennessee? How Kentucky’s over-dogs ‘outdid’ overachieving Vols.

Next weekend’s game in Knoxville can be considered a rematch of exceptional programs. Kentucky is, well, Kentucky. And Tennessee defies all recruiting logic as a top-10 team made up almost exclusively of three-star prospects.

What does Tennessee’s success of late say about the seemingly ceaseless attention paid to recruiting analysis and player ratings?

Jerry Meyer, the national analyst for the 247Sports recruiting service, had a ready answer. “How many Tennessee teams have been out there?” he asked.

Last week’s conversation about Tennessee’s success, which includes a co-championship of the Southeastern Conference last season, was not Meyer’s first. He had experience fielding questions about how precise recruiting evaluations are.

“I think it’s pretty precise,” he said. “Because all we ever do is talk about anomalies. Who the hell writes an article about everybody being as good as they’re supposed to be?”

Meyer, the son of a college coach, laughed.

“We’re talking about anomalies,” he said, “and they happen. They happen a lot.”

Meyer cited several reasons why Tennessee has become an anomaly. Coach Rick Barnes and his staff are good as identifying underrated players. They are good at developing these players. They mesh their players.

“They have a great synergy,” Meyer said of the Vols. “They put together pieces that make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.”

As Meyer saw it, Tennessee seeks out underrated players. “They are identifying players with a chip on their shoulder. They’re (irked) because they think they got overlooked by the system.”

Grant Williams has re-shaped his body. “He wasn’t a fricking man yet,” Meyer said of the Tennessee star in high school. “He was a teenager.” Nor was Williams as explosive as he is now. “He wasn’t Chuck Hayes,” Meyer said, referencing the former UK standout. “Now, he is.”

Admiral Schofield did not play in the major recruiting events, thus was an unknown, Meyer said. Jordan Bone did not start for his AAU team.

Of evaluating and projecting players, Meyer said, “It’s an inexact science.”

Kentucky’s 86-69 victory over Tennessee last weekend intrigued Meyer.

“It was like Kentucky out-Tennesseed them,” he said. “They were like the tougher team. The things we praise about Tennessee this year, Kentucky outdid them, dude. That was a beatdown.”

‘Welcome to the club’

Amazement. Admiration. Pride.

Former Kentucky All-American Kenny Walker had a mix of emotions as he watched replays of Hamidou Diallo winning the NBA Slam Dunk Contest last weekend.

Diallo made a lasting memory by jumping over Shaquille O’Neal en route to a dunk.

Walker’s reaction? “I’m jealous because I wish I had thought of something like that,” he said. “My initial thought when he brought Shaq out, I’m going, ‘Wait a minute, now. Does he know that Shaq is 7-1?’

“I don’t know if it’s crazy or dumb to do that. I guess not if you can pull it off.”

Walker and Diallo are something of kindred spirits. Both played for UK. Both gained a reputation for high-flying exploits (hence the nickname Kenny “Sky” Walker). Both won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

Walker won 30 years ago. (We’ll pause to let that sink in.)

Walker said that dunking in a contest is more difficult than dunking in a game. “Because in a game your adrenaline is going,” he said. “You’re just dunking off instincts. But when you’re dunking in a dunk contest, you’ve got to plan or have some kind of idea on what you’re going to do.”

When someone dunks over Shaq, what horizons are left to conquer? Walker pondered trying to dunk over one of his former Washington Bullets teammates: 7-7 Gheorghe Muresan. “I don’t know if that’s humanly possible,” he said.

“It’s getting harder and harder and harder to come up with the creativity and give fans something they’ve never seen.”

The dunk contest might seem like the home run derby at baseball’s All-Star Game. The achievement of winning is separate and unequal to actually playing the game. But Walker said that a connection can be made. Winning the contest should boost Diallo’s confidence.

“I think he’ll play better,” Walker said. “If not, he’ll definitely get a lot of attention or a lot of criticism. But his name is out there, and people will be watching. That’s what you want. You want to show fans and people you’re more than a dunker.”

Walker has turned a wall in his home into a neon display of him winning the 1989 contest. His crowning achievement as a dunker came two days after the death of his father.

“So it was kind of a bittersweet moment for me,” he said.

In winning the Slam Dunk Contest, Diallo joined exclusive company that includes Dominique Wilkins, Michael Jordan, Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant and Julius Erving.

“Those are legendary high-fliers of the game,” Walker said. “Ain’t nobody can take it away.

“The only thing I can tell Diallo is welcome to the club, buddy.”

Winning the SEC

As we enter the final two weeks of the regular season, how important is winning the SEC? Opinion is divided at Kentucky. On the eve of Kentucky’s first game against Tennessee, Coach John Calipari said it meant “nothing.” He keeps his eye on the ultimate prize: a national championship.

Three days later, associate head coach Kenny Payne said that setting a championship standard “means a lot.”

The two other teams contending with Kentucky for this year’s conference title spoke of it as a worthy objective.

“I think everybody wants to win their league,” LSU Coach Will Wade said. “Everybody is motivated to do that. Certainly it’d mean a lot to our players. It’d mean a lot to our fans. I know that. It’ll mean a ton to our state if we were able to close it out.”

Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes agreed. “Everybody wants to win their conference,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question about that. And that’s why we play these games.”

Barnes also suggested that an SEC championship can be a tool for promoting a program. “When you’re in position where you can do that, you really want to do it,” he said. “It’s important.”

In keeping up with this year’s race, LSU players are doing more than scoreboard watching. Wade recalled the scene as his players boarded a plane after winning at Georgia last weekend.

“Everybody had their phone on the Tennessee-Kentucky game,” he said.

When asked about the importance of winning the SEC championship, Wade said, “We haven’t really talked about it that much. We’ve talked about giving championship-level effort, championship-level habits. We talked about the ingredients that would go into winning the SEC.”

Third among equals?

In terms of preseason expectations, LSU Coach Will Wade spoke of his team being third in line among the SEC championship contenders at this late stage.

“I told our guys coming into the season we’re not a team that will get the benefit of the doubt because we haven’t been in the mix very much here at LSU lately,” he said. “People just don’t know about us. … Tennessee won it last year. And Kentucky wins it just about every year.

“People are just very, very familiar with those teams. … They’ve earned that.”

Ratings

Wednesday’s Duke-North Carolina game had the third-highest rating in the history of ESPN’s coverage of college basketball. It had a 3.2 rating.

The record for highest rating is another Duke-North Carolina game, this one on March 8, 2008. It had a rating of 3.7.

The second highest-rating was a matchup of the Nos. 1 and 2 teams: Tennessee against John Calipari-coached Memphis on Feb. 23, 2008.

Wednesday’s Duke-North Carolina game had 4,343,000 viewers. That made it the most-viewed weeknight college basketball game in ESPN history, the network said. The previous record of 4,140,000 was set by the Duke-UNC game of Feb. 18, 2015.

Happy birthday

To Rajon Rondo. He turned 33 on Friday. … To Phil Argento. He turned 72 on Friday. … To former UK assistant coach Herb Sendek. He turned 56 on Friday. … To Jamal Murray. He turned 22 on Saturday. … To Tom Heitz. He turned 58 on Saturday. … To former Kentucky sports information director Chris Cameron. He turns 59 on Monday. … To Joey Holland. He turns 64 on Monday. … To former CBS commentator Billy Packer. He turns 79 on Monday. … To former Florida big man Joakim Noah. He turns 34 on Monday. … To Chuck Aleksinas. He turns 60 on Tuesday.

This story was originally published February 24, 2019 at 8:24 AM.