Tennessee (#8 AP, 17-3, 4-3 SEC) looks to bounce back from Saturday's loss to Auburn, while Kentucky (#12 AP, 14-5, 3-3 SEC) also wants to get right following back-to back losses against Alabama and Vanderbilt. These old rivals square off Tuesday, Jan. 28 at 7:00 EST in Knoxville (ESPN).

Previously on Vols vs. Cats

Tennessee hosted UK on Senior Night a year ago, but lost 81-85 in spite of Dalton Knecht’s career-best 40 points. Tennessee and Kentucky split their home-and-home on the season, as the Vols won in Lexington earlier in the year, 103-92. The Cats have dominated the all-time series, with UT trailing 78-161, but the record gets much closer in Knoxville, where Tennessee trails just 53-59. The schools have split the last ten games in the series evenly, 5-5.

Scouting Kentucky

• SR F #7 Andrew Carr didn't play in UK's loss to Vanderbilt probably won’t play Tuesday against the Vols.
• Look for SR F #15 Ansley Almonor to get most of Carr’s minutes. Almonor has scored 9.8 PPG and shot 10/16 (62.5%) from 3 in the last four games.
• JR G #0 Otega Oweh is the only SEC player to reach double-digits in every game this season. He is posting career bests in points per game (15.9), FG% (50.7%), FT% (76.5%), rebounds per game (4.5), assists per game (1.8) and steals per game (1.7).
• SR G #2 Jaxson Robinson has made at least three 3-pointers in four consecutive games.
• SR PG #2 Lamont Butler helped lead San Diego State to the 2023 national championship game—he hit the buzzer-beater against FAU in the Final Four, if you remember—before transferring to Kentucky. Butler was a two-time Mountain West Defensive POY and was named a The Sporting News’ Midseason 2nd-Team All-American a few weeks ago.

Prediction

Around the orange-tinted areas of the internet, there’s been some doom and gloom following Tennessee’s loss to Auburn Saturday. Much of it falls somewhere between a view of this team as “overrated” or “underachieving.” Maybe it’s the fact the Vols actually had a chance to pull out the win and didn’t that has some of the pump-iest sunshine pumpers down on this team. But if you were expecting Tennessee to walk into the home of #1 Auburn and walk out with a win, frankly you weren’t paying attention. No outlet had the Vols with a better than 26% chance to win. The loss was all but a foregone conclusion. Tennessee simply having a chance to win that game should be a cause for optimism. I’m not trying to claim a moral victory because the game was close. But of UT’s three losses this season, that one was the least bad. If you want to continue harping on Tennessee choking away the Vandy game, go ahead. That was a bad loss. Saturday's outcome in Auburn (though maybe not the way we got there) was easy to predict.

And after all, the direction Tennessee’s season takes here at the midway point of conference play was never going to be decided by a single game. This trilogy of Auburn-Kentucky-Florida as a whole is much more important than any one of the games on an island. The Vols need to go 2-1 in this stretch, and now that the “and-one” has happened, how does UT get the “two”? It starts with Kentucky Tuesday night.

The good news is that Tennessee statistically does the right things to hurt UK’s chances. In three of Kentucky’s five losses, the Cats had an Offensive Rating below 100, an Effective Field Goal rate at or below 50%, shot less than 50% from 2, and less than 30% from 3. Tennessee’s season averages beat those numbers easily—holding opponents to an 86.8 Offensive Rating (#1 nationally), 41.9% eFG% (#1), 44.9% from 2P (#19) and 25.4 % from 3P (#1).

That’s a lot of numbers, but it might help explain why Tennessee has a 79% win probability according to Kenpom, and a 78% win probability according to Torvik and ESPN. The biggest potential danger for the Vols could be turnovers. Kentucky is among the nation’s worst at creating turnovers—especially non-steal turnovers, where the Cats rank dead last. But Tennessee hasn’t been great at protecting the ball. Zakai Zeigler has the worst turnover rate among SEC point guards. He masks it with a high steal rate himself and maintains a good assist-to-turnover ratio despite the 24% TO rate. If Tennessee is gifting the ball to Kentucky, thereby giving them possessions they aren’t used to having, it could be trouble for the Vols.

However, expect to see the Vols bounce back and play their typical smothering style, this time in a much friendlier environment. Vols 75, Wildcats 66.