Why Kentucky basketball might be even better equipped to beat Tennessee this time around
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Preview: Kentucky vs. Tennessee in NCAA Tournament
Click below to read more coverage from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com ahead of Kentucky’s men’s NCAA Tournament game against Tennessee in Indianapolis on Friday.
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It’s Kentucky-Tennessee, round three.
The SEC basketball rivals will meet for the third time this season Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium, and the final game between the Cats and the Vols will come in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The winner will be one victory away from the Final Four by the end of it.
Tennessee is the favorite. The betting line says Vols by 4.5 points. The college basketball predictive websites are close to that, with KenPom projecting a 76-72 victory for the Vols and the Torvik numbers spitting out a 74-71 win for coach Rick Barnes’ team.
Tennessee was the favorite in the first two meetings, too. The Vols lost both of those.
And it’s worth considering: Are Mark Pope’s Wildcats actually in a better position to beat UT this time around than they were going into those first two games?
In game one, the Cats were double-digit underdogs and won 78-73 in Knoxville.
Jaxson Robinson, who has been ruled out for the season with a wrist injury, played 35 minutes in that one, but he was battling cramps that night, in and out of the game during crunch time. UK’s starting point guard, Lamont Butler, didn’t play at all due to a shoulder injury. Starting power forward Andrew Carr played fewer than 90 seconds due to a back injury.
Two weeks later, the Cats were back home in Rupp Arena but underdogs once again. They beat Tennessee 75-64 that night.
This time around, Robinson was out for the entire game with the wrist injury that ultimately ended his season. Butler played, but he was knocked out for the game after reinjuring his shoulder midway through the second half. UK had to rally from behind after his exit. And Carr played, too, but his back was clearly still bothering him.
On Friday night, the Cats won’t have Robinson, but they will have Butler and Carr.
And both are feeling good going into this three-match in Indianapolis.
Lamont Butler’s new brace
Butler, who injured his shoulder for a third time during UK’s win over Oklahoma in the SEC Tournament two weeks ago and missed the next night’s loss to Alabama as a result, didn’t quite look like himself in the Cats’ March Madness opener against Troy last week.
He was, as always, a smothering defender, but he went scoreless in Kentucky’s 76-57 victory over the Trojans, missing all five of his shots from the field and forcing some passes that led to turnovers.
Two nights later, Butler was just as much of a nuisance defensively — probably more of one — but also set the tone for the Cats’ scoring attack, with 10 points in the first half and 14 for the game in the win over Illinois.
He was 4-for-5 from the floor and 2-for-3 from 3-point range. Going into that night, he had been 1-for-11 on 3-pointers over eight games since returning from his first shoulder injury.
The key to Butler’s success? It might have been a new support for that injured left shoulder.
In most of the games since his return from the injury, Butler had worn a bulky black brace that looks more like armor than a piece of basketball equipment. For the Illinois game — as well as the SEC Tournament contest against Oklahoma — he was able to wear something different.
“It’s a lighter brace,” Butler told the Herald-Leader. “I actually wore it during the Oklahoma game. I ended up getting hurt in that game — that was the first time I wore it. And then, the Illinois game, my shoulder was feeling good. It’s a lighter brace. And it just feels better — a lot less restrictive, but still protects (my shoulder).”
Butler played just eight minutes against Oklahoma, so he didn’t get the full feel — and fans didn’t get a full look — of what he could do with the brace that night. But everyone saw how he struggled to score with the old setup.
“I just really couldn’t extend my arm much,” Butler said of the monstrosity that was previously attached to his shoulder. “It was kind of like restricting it when I was moving it back and up.”
He paused for a moment, then smiled.
“It feels good to be free,” he said.
Andrew Carr feeling better
Carr is also moving a lot better these days.
The 6-foot-11, 235-pound forward began having back troubles around the start of SEC play. He was a shell of himself a few games into the league schedule and was finally shut down for 10 days leading up to UK’s first meeting with Tennessee.
That night, Pope put him in the game and immediately had second thoughts. He played just 89 seconds. In the rematch with the Vols two weeks later, Carr played 19 minutes but had just two points and two rebounds. He was still having trouble playing through contact.
That was more than six weeks ago. Gradually, Carr started feeling better. And that’s been apparent on the court. He didn’t have his best statistical game against Illinois — four points and six rebounds — but he played a major part in the team’s collective defensive excellence. His power move at the basket toward the end of the game basically iced the victory for the Cats. And he played 32 minutes, his third-highest total this season.
Over the past couple of weeks, specifically, Carr’s more physical brand of basketball has been noticeable during games. It’s helped him tremendously as a defender and a rebounder.
“Oh yeah, it’s totally, totally different,” he told the Herald-Leader. “So that was the main thing that I really felt was being able to move your feet and really brace. Like, I wasn’t able to brace at all. And moving my feet wasn’t very good either. For me, that always adds into rebounding a whole bunch, too.
“So those were kind of the main areas that I really felt it. And so I’ve felt super comfortable these last couple weeks — the last month or so — of being able to really get down and defend, be able to switch out on people, and be able to really hold my own.”
Kentucky has defeated Tennessee shorthanded before. Twice, in fact. And while the Cats won’t have Robinson this time around, the combination of Butler and Carr — assuming they can stay on the court Friday night — should make this team stronger than it was in either of those first two matchups.
Of course, Tennessee didn’t play well in the first two meetings. Its two biggest scorers — Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler — were a combined 4-for-30 from 3-point range over those two losses. Lanier, a 41.0% shooter from deep this season, was 3-for-17 in those games.
Logic would say those players fare better this time around, but perhaps the Cats just have Tennessee’s number, in that regard?
“He’s a great player,” UK center Amari Williams said of Lanier. “You see what he’s done for Tennessee over the past games. I feel like against us, we just know what kind of shooter he is. And just to stay on him at all times — we got great defenders who chase him vigorously around the court, in Collin Chandler and Otega (Oweh). So having two guys like that who are able to switch back and forth on him is gonna tire him out at some point. And I feel like that’s what happened the past two games.”
Will it happen again? Everyone will find out Friday night. The old college basketball saying is it’s hard to beat a team three times in one season. The Cats aren’t looking at it that way.
Butler and Carr will be ready to go from the start, and, presumably, at the end. Kentucky’s a much better defensive team than it was six weeks ago. With Robinson out, some others — Chandler among them — have stepped up.
The Cats are going into this one concentrating on the Cats. And, underdogs or not, they seem to be walking into round three of this rivalry game in a pretty good spot.
“So we kind of just do what we do every game and just scout them and work on the things that they’re good at and how we’re able to use that against them,” said UK guard Koby Brea. “I’m sure that they’ll probably try to change things up a little bit since the first two times didn’t work out too well. But we’re going to continue to do what we do. We work on every type of defense guarding us. Just gotta continue to do us.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 3:52 PM.
