As UK prepares to face Tennessee, ex-UK star Kenny Walker has a message for 2025 Cats
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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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Based on his Kentucky Wildcats playing experience, former UK star Kenny Walker wants to assure anxious fans that you can beat a good team three straight times.
It’s needing a fourth win in a row over the same foe where things get dicey.
On Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, coach Mark Pope and Kentucky will face border state and Southeastern Conference rival Tennessee in the NCAA Tournament round of 16.
To advance to the Midwest Regional finals, UK will have to replicate its 78-73 (Knoxville) and 75-64 (Lexington) regular season wins over Rick Barnes’ Volunteers.
“I know a lot of people are nervous, ‘Well, we’ve got to play Tennessee again,’” Walker says. “Well, I look at Tennessee-Kentucky pretty much like our matchups back in 1985-86. Sometimes, ‘style makes the fight.’ I think Kentucky just matches up with Tennessee, probably, better than some other teams in the SEC.”
It was the experience of UK’s 1985-86 team that gives Walker unique insight into the challenge of facing a league rival in the NCAA Tournament.
That year, Eddie Sutton’s first as UK head man and Walker’s senior season, Kentucky played not one but two SEC teams in the NCAA tourney.
The 1985-86 Cats faced those two league foes, Alabama and LSU, four times each that season.
UK swept two games from both the Crimson Tide and Tigers in the regular season. Kentucky then beat each en route to winning the SEC Tournament. Then, the Cats had to face both teams for a fourth time in the NCAA tourney.
In the 1986 NCAA Tournament round of 16, Kentucky beat Alabama for a fourth straight time, 68-63.
Alas, the fourth meeting with LSU did not yield as happy an outcome. The No. 11 seed Tigers scored a 59-57 upset of the No. 1 seed Wildcats, one of the more painful losses in UK men’s basketball history.
Based on that personal experience, Walker says, “You can beat a team three times. It’s much harder to do it a fourth time.”
The good news for the 2024-25 Cats, they just need a third victory this season over Tennessee to keep the UK season going.
In a sense, Tennessee’s Barnes may be in a less complicated situation entering Friday night’s game than is Kentucky’s Pope. When you are the coach whose team has lost all the games against your impending foe, it would seem pretty clear you need to make some strategic changes.
Conversely, for the coach whose team has won the prior games, do you stay with what you know has worked or do you risk making some alterations hoping to catch your foe off guard?
In the 1986 NCAA tourney, Walker says Kentucky’s Sutton pretty much stayed with what he knew had worked previously in UK’s prior wins over both Alabama and LSU.
Conversely, seeking to find a way to turn the tables on a team that had already beaten his three times, LSU coach Dale Brown uncorked an unconventional, matchup zone defense that gave the Wildcats fits.
“Dale Brown was a master of the junk defenses,” Walker says. “In the second half, I don’t know if it was a box and one, a triangle and two, I guess it was just kind of a matchup zone. But, whatever it was, it bothered us.”
Given that this season has yielded Kentucky’s first trip past the first weekend of an NCAA Tournament since 2019, Walker says UK backers should be grateful just to be playing somebody in a Sweet 16 game.
“What we’ve been through as a fan base the last couple of years, you’ll take whoever you get at this point,” Walker said. “You can’t be too choosy about who you can play. The SEC is a really good league this year and Tennessee is one of the better teams in the SEC — so we are going to have to beat them again.”
Overall, Walker says he is encouraged by how Pope’s first season coaching at his college alma mater has turned out.
“It’s been up and down, obviously,” Walker says of the 2024-25 Kentucky season. “Like everybody else, you go on the ‘what ifs?’ If we didn’t have as many injuries, what could (the season) have been? I’m disappointed we had to deal with so much adversity, but I love the way we handled that adversity.”
Based on his experiences in 1986, Walker says he would rather be the team entering Friday night’s game in Kentucky’s situation than Tennessee’s.
“When you go in 0-2, yeah, it can be motivation to try to show the fans that, ‘Hey, we are going to turn this thing around,’” Walker says. “It’s good to feel that way. But, still, that’s a little doubt in your mind because you know you haven’t beaten that team.
“Whether Kentucky wins or not, I think from a confidence standpoint, they are feeling confident. You don’t want them to feel overconfident, but I think they are feeling confident that they can match up against Tennessee really well.”
UK NCAA tourney games vs. SEC teams
Friday night men’s NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional round-of-16 contest between Kentucky and Tennessee will be only the fourth time in which UK has faced a Southeastern Conference rival in the NCAA tourney.
These are the prior three (Kentucky played Arkansas in the 1978 Final Four, but the Razorbacks were not then in the SEC):
▪ 1986 Southeast Regional semifinals: Kentucky 68, Alabama 63. Kenny Walker (22 points, seven rebounds) and Winston Bennett (14 points, 12 boards) led the Wildcats to their fourth win of the season over the Crimson Tide.
▪ 1986 Southeast Regional finals: LSU 59, Kentucky 57. John Williams (16 points), Don Redden (15) and the relatively unsung Ricky Blanton (12) helped the Tigers turn the tables on the Wildcats after LSU had lost three prior games to UK that season.
▪ 2019 Midwest Regional finals: Auburn 77, Kentucky 71, overtime. Auburn’s veteran guards, Jared Harper (26 points) and Bryce Brown (24), outplayed UK’s all-freshman backcourt (combined 13-of-38 shooting), and Bruce Pearl’s Tigers avenged two regular season defeats to John Calipari’s Wildcats.
This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 11:09 AM.
