Kentucky basketball proves again it’s the Kryptonite for Tennessee’s daunting defense
No team is invincible in every respect. No matter how great, a team likely has a weakness that an equally talented foe can exploit on a given day.
Take Tennessee.
The Volunteers are the stoutest squad in college basketball in terms of field-goal percentage defense and 3-point percentage defense.
But they have a Kryptonite: Kentucky.
Which the Wildcats proved — again — in a 75-64 victory Tuesday at Rupp Arena to sweep the regular-season series from the Vols.
Kentucky coach Mark Pope began his postgame news conference praising his opponent, expressing his immense respect for Tennessee coach Rick Barnes.
“They play hard. They play right. They play together,” Pope said of the Volunteers. “And it was really great to be a part of this epic, epic game tonight. It was awesome.”
Not as “awesome” for the vanquished Vols, one would assume.
Because for the second time in less than a month, Kentucky (17-7, 6-5 SEC) torched Tennessee’s defense.
On Jan. 28 in Knoxville, Tennessee, UK made 50% of its shots overall (25 for 50) and beyond the 3-point line (12 of 24) in a 78-73 victory at Thompson-Boling Arena. Both those percentages marked season highs for a UT opponent.
In Tuesday’s 11-point win, the Wildcats almost duplicated that performance. To a T.
They made the same number of 3s (12) on the same number of attempts (24). And they sank two more shots overall (26) while attempting two more field goals (52).
Just how impressive have these two efforts been?
Consider:
Only two other teams (Syracuse and Vanderbilt) have even managed to make 45% of their shots against the Volunteers (20-5, 7-5) this season; UK now has hit the 50% mark two times in two meetings.
Missouri connected on 40% of its 3s — 12 for 30 — in an 85-81 loss to UT last week. That’s the best percentage by a non-UK foe versus the Vols during the 2024-25 campaign.
Why has Kentucky shined where so many others have failed against Tennessee’s vaunted defense?
“I think Mark’s system is very sound,” Barnes said. “I think he’s put all of his guys in a position where they can excel.”
Barnes said center Amari Williams is the exemplar of the Wildcats’ offensive efficiency.
“With their five-out actions they run, he likes to get up there, (and) if you don’t keep enough pressure on him, it’s like a quarterback in football just getting to stand back there all day, and he’s a good enough passer, he can pick you apart and do those type things,” Barnes said of Williams, who finished with two assists and (notably) took on more ballhandling duties after a second-half injury to starting point guard Lamont Butler. “Again, I give credit to Mark and his assistants for putting his guys where they need to be.”
So, have Pope and his staff solved UT? Simply a bad matchup for the Vols?
Not so fast, Pope said.
“It’s such a small sample size,” Pope said. “It’s just two games.”
But …
“Our guys, I think they understand what a challenge it is to go against this Tennessee team — this great defensive team. There’s no two ways about it. They’re great,” Pope said. “And I think our guys look forward to the challenge. We had some guys make some big plays. (The Vols) exert so much pressure, kind of the way we play is almost more functional against intense, intense pressure — if you can just survive.
“So it’s not a terrible fit for how we play. But it’s an incredible challenge, for sure.”
If Kentucky players know the secret to slicing up Tennessee — at the least, identifying areas where they can victimize the Vols, repeatedly — they weren’t willing to divulge details.
Fifth-senior guard Koby Brea opined that the Wildcats are “just really good at what we do.” That they work hard. That the coaches have instilled “so many really good things in us” they can’t help but display it on game days.
Fellow senior Ansley Almonor was equally evasive. The numbers they’ve posted against the Vols, he said, “don’t really tell the real story.” The key is film study. He and his teammates watched enough tape of Tennessee that Almonor said there were numerous ways to attack it.
Just none he was inclined to enumerate.
Leave it to a freshman to pull back the curtain, ever so slightly.
“I feel like we just have so many great players, so many great weapons, and then we have (winners) on the clipboard — I mean, they know how to attack anything,” said forward Trent Noah, the Kentucky high school star who had a personal-best 11 points Tuesday in the signature outing of his college career to this point. “Coach Pope is one of the smartest basketball people that I’ve ever been around.
“He’s brilliant. He does such a great job. He just gives us little advantages that we can exploit.”
