Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 80-78 win over No. 24 Tennessee
Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 80-78 win at No. 24 Tennessee:
1. Cats continue to paint Knoxville blue. Kentucky’s victory on Saturday was its sixth in its past seven games against Tennessee at the Thompson-Boling Arena.
In the current decade (since 2020), UK has beaten UT on Tennessee’s home court in every season except 2021-22.
Mark Pope is now 2-0 as Kentucky coach vs. Tennessee at Thompson-Boling.
It is a far cry from the Joe B. Hall coaching era (1972-85), when the Wildcats went 1-12 vs. the Volunteers in Knoxville.
2. Kentucky’s no good, very bad, terrible first halves. UK went into the locker room at halftime Saturday trailing 42-31.
The Tennessee contest is the 11th game Kentucky has played vs. high-level competition — defined as power conference opponents plus Gonzaga.
In those 11 games, the Wildcats have now trailed at halftime nine times, were tied once and led once.
Just as was the case Wednesday night at LSU, the bad first half simply set Kentucky up for some second-half dramatics.
3. The new version of the Comeback Cats. Having spotted Tennessee an 11-point halftime edge, Kentucky just kept chipping away throughout half two.
The Volunteers lead was down to two, 77-75, as the game turned into the final minute.
That is when the Wildcats stepped up big.
After Otega Oweh was fouled by Nate Ament with 50.3 seconds left, the UK star hit the second of two free throws to pull UK within one.
Collin Chandler them made the pivotal play of the game for Kentucky, stealing a pass and feeding Oweh for a layup that put UK ahead for the first time in the game, 78-77, with 34.3 seconds left.
Oweh was fouled by Gillespie, but missed the free throw.
However, Mouhamed Dioubate got the offensive rebound for Kentucky, and that set up Denzel Aberdeen for a tough, driving 6-footer that gave UK an 80-77 lead with 16 seconds left.
After a Rick Barnes timeout, Tennessee’s Troy Henderson missed a contested 3-pointer with 9 seconds left.
Following a scramble for the ball, UT’s Gillespie ran down the loose ball along the baseline. Before the UT guard could get the ball to the 3-point line, Dioubate fouled him with 2.6 seconds left.
Gillespie hit the first free throw, missed the second intentionally.
Tennessee’s Jaylen Carey got the offensive rebound, but was unable to score.
Kentucky heroes in this one were many, led by Aberdeen (team-high 22 points), Chandler (12 points, the game-altering steal), Oweh (12 points, five down the stretch), Jasper Johnson (12 points, 5-of-6 field-goal shooting, team-high four assists) and Dioubate (10 points, six rebounds, a lot of fight against Tennessee’s physicality).
4. Cats hold Rick Barnes at bay. The UK victory dropped the overall record of Barnes against Kentucky to 13-15, 12-13 as Tennessee head man.
That means Barnes, 71, remains five wins behind longtime former LSU coach Dale Brown (18-33) for most all-time coaching victories against Kentucky.
The only coaches with more wins over UK all-time than Barnes are Brown (18), Billy Donovan (17), Bobby Knight (15), Ray Mears (15) and Roy Skinner (14).
5. The dope on Pope. With the win over No. 24 Tennessee, second-year Kentucky coach Mark Pope is now 10-11 overall as UK head man in games vs. the AP Top 25.
Pope improved to 6-8 as Kentucky coach in true road games.
In SEC games, Pope is now 13-10.
Against high-level competition (power conference teams plus Gonzaga), Pope is 20-18.
This story was originally published January 17, 2026 at 2:45 PM.
