Thursday Headlines: On to Tennessee Edition

The Cats have a short turnaround before taking on the Vols in Lexington

By Zac Oakes@ZacOakes Feb 4, 2021, 6:40am EST

Once again, Kentucky fell apart late in the game, shooting themselves in the foot on a comeback attempt on the road against a top 20 Missouri squad.

So now, Kentucky looks ahead to coming back home to Lexington where they will be met by their rival, the Tennessee Volunteers.

The Vols have hit their own rough patch in the season. Once viewed as a Final Four contender, Tennessee has struggled over the last three weeks.

The Vols were blown out by Florida and then lost by nine to Missouri. After that, they barely defeated Mississippi State and seemed to be getting on the right track by easily defeating Kansas.

But then, Tennessee couldn’t seem to get anything going offensively and only scored 50 points in a loss at Ole Miss.

Tennessee will certainly be looking to get back on track when they come to Lexington on Saturday and face off against a Wildcats squad that can’t seem to stop beating themselves.

We’re past the point of needing a win to sneak into an NCAA Tournament bid. For Kentucky, it’s now about jockeying for position in the SEC standings to get a favorable spot in the conference tournament.

The Cats sit just behind Tennessee in the SEC standings, and need to string some wins together to set themselves up for an SEC Tournament run. Since they couldn’t pull off the comeback at Missouri, that starts Saturday with Tennessee.

Tweet of the Day

Kentucky was +6 in 45 possessions tonight with at least 2 of Allen/Brooks/Jackson in, and they were -11 in 30 possessions when playing 1 or fewer.

Literally what i wrote about today: https://t.co/4k95bisfRQ
— Hoops Insight (@HoopsInsight) February 4, 2021