LEXINGTON, Ky. — Tennessee basketball led by two points and had all the momentum with just under five minutes to play on Tuesday night at Kentucky. Then the Wildcats dominated winning time, outscoring Tennessee 17-4 in the game’s final 4:21 to earn a 75-64 victory and complete the season-sweep of the Vols.
“We were right where we needed to be and didn’t make enough winning plays on either end of the court,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said postgame.
Tennessee had trailed for all but 25 seconds of game time when a Jordan Gainey layup gave the Vols the lead with 7:30 to play. The Vols trailed by as many as nine points multiple times late in the first half and early in the second half before putting together their best stretch of play to climb back in the game.
When Tennessee grabbed two offensive rebounds and took the lead on a Zakai Zeigler reverse layup with 4:50 to play, the Vols seemed to be in business. But that’s when things got away from Tennessee.
“I think we got too excited about the comeback and wanted to win on offense when all we had to do was play defense,” Tennessee forward Igor Milicic said postgame. “We got a little excited and things didn’t go our way and we lost our head. Defensively, they scored on us way too much at the end.”
Tennessee’s offense was good during its second half comeback but it was the Vols’ ability to string together stops that allowed them to take the lead. In another torrid perimeter shooting performance, Kentucky scored just 10 points in a stretch just over 10 minutes during the second half that saw Tennessee turn a seven point deficit into a two-point lead.
Kentucky reclaimed the lead on a Kobe Brea bomb from Richmond with Jahmai Mashack right in his face. But from there, the Vols’ defense had too many lapses.
Amari Williams scored on an and-one after Milicic took a half step to overplaying a handoff allowing Williams to get a step on him. Then a possession later, Lanier fell down running around a handoff and Williams bounced a pass to Trent Noah. Felix Okpara was a half step slow to help and fouled Noah.
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Brea drilled another contested bomb and by the time he blew past Lanier and threw a beautiful alley-oop to Otega Oweh, Kentucky led by eight and it was all but over.
“Way, way, way too many defensive breakdowns on our part,” Barnes said. “Give Kentucky credit, they did it, but we had way too many defensive breakdowns on things that you can’t do there at the end of the game.”
“There were scouting report issues on our part,” sophomore forward Cade Phillips said. “On not remembering what guys do and lack of focus all the way through.”
Tennessee’s offense faltered down the stretch as well. Zeigler fired a pass out of bounds the possession after Brea’s first triple put Kentucky ahead. Jordan Gainey missed an open three-pointer and Milicic missed a contested one.
The Vols’ only made field goal following the Zeigler layup with 4:50 to play was a Lanier dunk. Brea’s second three-pointer was a possession later.
“I thought offensively we had a few guys that got too emotional, didn’t make really good decisions on the offensive end,” Barnes said.
After scoring 34 points in the first 16 minutes of the second half, Tennessee scored just four points in the final four minutes. But Tennessee is a program built on defense. And those miscues are the tough ones to swallow as the Vols let a second banner road win slip away in SEC play.
“We’re disappointed,” Milicic said. “We just have to learn from it and get better.”
