Kentucky basketball does it again. Cats storm back to beat No. 25 Tennessee
Kentucky was down double digits to Tennessee on Saturday night. Again.
The Wildcats made a game of it. Again.
And then Mark Pope’s team did it. Again.
The Cats stormed back in the second half and ultimately completed another UK basketball comeback, beating the No. 25-ranked Volunteers 74-71 in Rupp Arena.
Collin Chandler hit a 3-pointer with 32.4 seconds left — after an acrobatic pass from under the basket by Otega Oweh, with the shot clock ticking down — to give Kentucky a 71-69 lead. The Cats got a stop on the other end, and Malachi Moreno secured the defensive rebound and made one of two free throws to put the Cats up 72-69.
Tennessee got the ball back with 14.4 seconds left, and that possession ended with J.P. Estrella at the line, where he made a pair of free throws with 8.1 seconds left to cut Kentucky’s lead to 72-71.
Chandler then went to the line with 7.3 seconds remaining. He missed the front end of a one-and-one, but Mouhamed Dioubate corralled the offensive rebound and four precious seconds ticked off the clock before UT could foul again. Aberdeen made two free throws to make it a 74-71 game.
Tennessee’s Ja’Kobi Gillespie missed a halfcourt shot at the buzzer that would have tied it.
With members of the 1996 national championship team watching from behind the Kentucky bench — where ’96 co-captain Pope is now the team’s head coach — the Cats fell behind their SEC rivals by 14 points in the first half before staging yet another comeback in a season that has been filled with them.
By the midway point of the second half, that 14-point halftime deficit had been narrowed to a 57-53 Tennessee lead. With loud chants of “Go Big Blue!” coming from the Rupp crowd, Moreno found Oweh for a dunk to make it a 57-55 game, forcing UT coach Rick Barnes to call a timeout, and the fans in Rupp continued to bring the noise through the ensuing break.
A little while later, Oweh drove the baseline and hit a reverse layup while falling to the floor to give the Cats a 61-60 lead with 6:18 left, the first time UK had been ahead since the opening minutes of the game.
Tennessee scored the next five points — taking a 65-61 lead — but the Cats wouldn’t go away.
Aberdeen hit a pair of free throws with 1:27 left to put Kentucky ahead 68-67, but Tennessee’s Nate Ament answered at the other end with a bucket to give the Vols a 69-68 lead with 59 seconds remaining, setting up a tense final minute.
Oweh led Kentucky with 21 points, the ninth time in 11 SEC games this season in which he’s scored at least 20 points. Aberdeen joined him in double figures with 16 points, and Moreno added 10 points.
Ament — a former UK recruiting target — led the Vols with 29 points, and Gillespie added 15 points and four assists.
Kentucky improved to 17-7 and 8-3 in the SEC.
The Wildcats hit their first four shot attempts of the game, but that flurry didn’t do much good.
They were up only 8-5 after that hot start, but Gillespie gave Tennessee a 10-8 lead on a 3-pointer with 14:41 left in the first half, and the Vols didn’t trail again until Oweh’s layup put the Cats ahead 61-60 with 6:18 left in the second half.
The game was tied at 14 when Ament — held in check by Oweh in the opening minutes — went on a personal 8-0 run against the Cats, hitting two 3-pointers and a jumper to give Tennessee a 22-14 lead.
After Oweh ended that spurt with a bucket, Ament answered on the other end with another 3-pointer. On Tennessee’s next possession, Gillespie hit a 3 to give the Vols a 28-18 lead, their first double-digit advantage of the game.
UT extended that lead to 14 points by the end of the half, going into the break up 47-33, the seventh time this season that Kentucky had trailed by 10 or more points at halftime.
Ament had 19 points at the break. Gillespie scored 14 points in the first half. And those two combined to go 8 for 12 from 3-point range before halftime.
The Vols didn’t hit a 3 in the second half and ended the night at 8 for 21 on 3-point attempts.
The Wildcats secured a regular-season sweep over the Vols. Kentucky defeated Tennessee 80-78 in Knoxville on Jan. 17 after falling behind by 17 points in the first half.
UK forward Jayden Quaintance was on the court a couple of hours before tipoff Saturday shooting free throws — his most activity during pregame warmups in weeks — but he missed his ninth consecutive game with issues related to his surgically repaired knee.
It was the fifth consecutive game that the Cats played without point guard Jaland Lowe (shoulder), wing Kam Williams (foot) and Quaintance, leaving Pope with just nine players for his rotation once again.
Tennessee forward Felix Okpara, a regular starter for the Vols, missed his third straight game due to a calf injury.
Kentucky will have a week off before its next game, the only such break during league play. The Wildcats will play at No. 17 Florida next Saturday. The Gators (17-6, 8-2 SEC) are now all alone atop the conference standings after winning at Texas A&M on Saturday night.
Final stats: Kentucky 74, Tennessee 71
This story was originally published February 7, 2026 at 11:05 PM.
