Kentucky stuns Tennessee. What’s next? ‘Everybody thinks this is the start of something.’
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Game day: Kentucky 63, No. 5 Tennessee 56
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville.
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It has been quite some time since any Kentucky basketball team woke up on game day facing such long odds. And such low outside expectations.
The Wildcats were 10.5-point underdogs by the time they took the floor at Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday afternoon. Tennessee was ranked fifth in the country. UK had received zero votes in the latest Associated Press poll.
A week earlier, Kentucky had been beaten by 26 points on Alabama’s home floor. That same day, Tennessee beat South Carolina by 43 points. And three days later, that Gamecocks team — rated as the worst in the Southeastern Conference — beat the Wildcats in Rupp Arena.
What chance did Kentucky have against Tennessee? No chance, just about anyone who had been paying attention would tell you.
The Wildcats knew that was the perception. They were prepared to create their own reality.
The final score: Kentucky 63, Tennessee 56.
The scene in Knoxville: stunned silence.
“How did that team lose to South Carolina?” muttered one UT fan heading for the exits.
It’s a good question.
Was it a fluke? Or is this Kentucky team ready to turn the corner? It might be a while before the rest of college basketball finds out the answer. What Saturday did show is that these Cats never gave up on themselves.
A few minutes after pulling off the stunning upset, Jacob Toppin stood in the bowels of Thompson-Boling Arena, bouncing up and down with delight, smiling from ear to ear. He prefaced his story by saying that he was sure no one would believe it. Toppin said that he and teammate CJ Fredrick had been in the training room Friday, and Toppin turned to his fellow senior and made a declaration.
“Listen, this is gonna be the definition of college basketball,” he told Fredrick. “We just lost to South Carolina. We’re gonna go to Tennessee, and we’re gonna beat them. And that’s the definition of college basketball. Anybody can beat anybody. …
“We all came in here understanding that — if we fought, and if we did what we needed to do, as a team — we could win this game.”
Amazingly, they did.
Just four days earlier, the Cats found the bottom of their season — that unthinkable home loss to South Carolina, considered to be one of the worst major-conference teams in college basketball.
After that defeat, the players took it upon themselves to find a way forward. They had their own meetings — just players, no coaches — to try and figure things out.
Toppin said he and his fellow Wildcats talked about what they could do as individuals to improve and what they could do as a team to get better. They talked about how it takes only one player messing up to throw off the rest of the team. They talked about how communication on the court — a key focus of this season — goes both ways. You have to talk. But you also have to listen. And, in the case of Saturday’s opponent, you can’t ever back down.
“We knew this game was going to be a battle,” Toppin said. “We knew Tennessee was a really good team. But we also knew that they were going to fight. … That was our mindset coming into this game — just fighting. And just being ready for their punches. So we could punch back.”
The Cats started out short-handed — with Sahvir Wheeler and Daimion Collins both ruled out before the game with injuries — and then they took a haymaker.
Tennessee led 8-0 before three minutes had ticked off the clock, and the crowd was erupting with every basket. Seven days after Alabama had run Kentucky out of Tuscaloosa, it looked like a similar ending was in store for the Wildcats.
This time, they fought back. And then they pulled ahead.
By halftime, UK led 33-26. The Cats struggled mightily to start the second half, scoring just eight points — making just two buckets — in the first 10 minutes out of the break. Still, they didn’t waver, continued to play defense and battled on the boards. The Vols briefly took a lead midway through the second half. Antonio Reeves then nailed a three-pointer to put Kentucky back in front. Tennessee tied the score a few minutes later. And Fredrick hit a three of his own to give the Cats the lead for good with 5:37 left.
“Everybody thinks we’re gonna lose,” Reeves said of the outside perception coming in. “And, sometimes, that’s a good mentality to have — just being the underdog, everybody thinks you’re not gonna win. … And we fought our butts off out there.”
Reeves led the Cats with 18 points. Oscar Tshiebwe had another double-double (15 points and 13 rebounds) and powered Kentucky to a 43-23 victory on the boards. UK shot just 35 percent from the floor but made 22 of 25 free throws (beating the Vols by 15 points at the line).
The Wildcats didn’t win this one by hitting a bunch of three-pointers — they went just 5-for-16 from deep — or getting loose in transition. They simply took it to Tennessee and came out ahead. They attacked the basket offensively, they defended the three-point line (UT was 3-for-21 from deep) and they remained locked in, on and off the court.
This Kentucky team started the season ranked No. 4 nationally and had pretty much been written off by Tuesday night. The Cats flew into Knoxville no longer projected to be an NCAA Tournament team and left town with one of the most impressive wins of anyone in college basketball this season. And they didn’t seem all that surprised.
“There was no doubt in anybody’s mind,” Toppin said. “We knew what type of team we were. Obviously, we were in a slump. We were losing some games. But we came together. A lot of teams can’t do that. A lot of teams will splinter and start fighting each other, but we came together. … And we understood what we needed to do to flip the script. Now we just have to keep it moving forward.”
Reeves said the team had a couple of good days of practice after the South Carolina loss. That coincided with those “players only” conversations — meetings that featured frank talk but also ended with an air of positivity.
“Everybody thinks this is the start of something,” he said.
Is this truly a new beginning for these Wildcats?
Kentucky is now 11-6 on the season and 2-3 in Southeastern Conference play. Going into Saturday, the Cats had an 0-5 record in “Quad 1” games — the NCAA’s marker for the toughest matchups a team can play. One victory — impressive as it was — won’t wipe away the skepticism that has surrounded this team for the past several weeks. Can the Cats keep this momentum?
“We know how good we are,” Toppin declared. “And how good we can be.”
John Calipari — the Wildcats’ embattled coach — has said as much from the start. He clearly felt vindicated after Saturday’s result — “I told you I haven’t lost any faith in these guys,” Calipari crowed — while talking about his team as if the corner had been turned, the switch had been flipped.
Calipari has been the subject of speculation that he might leave Kentucky for Texas after the season, and plenty of UK fans have made it clear in recent weeks they’d be just fine with that.
“All of you that are shooting arrows and bullets, I’ve got bazooka holes in my body,” he said Saturday. “They go right through.”
Calipari said after Kentucky’s biggest win of the season that he wasn’t there to make excuses for what had come before, but then he proceeded to do just that, listing off the injuries that had piled up — dating back to the preseason — and how that had thrown off his team’s chemistry. He once again said that all of his teams are different, that patience is required before an identity is found.
With this bunch, it looked like time was running out. He even acknowledged that.
“I told all you guys it’s going to take time — this is not going to happen overnight,” Calipari said. “And everybody panicked. And, you know, I had a foot on the panic button. I didn’t have two feet on it, though.
“I’m so happy to be coaching that group of guys. Now I’m going to do everything I can to help them break through and be what they can be. That’s my job.”
Next game
Georgia at Kentucky
When: 9 p.m. Tuesday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Georgia 13-4 (3-1 SEC), Kentucky 11-6 (2-3 SEC)
Series: Kentucky leads 130-27
Last meeting: Kentucky won 92-77 on Jan. 8, 2022, in Lexington
This story was originally published January 14, 2023 at 5:08 PM.
