Down 21, Tennessee stuns No. 20 Kentucky

After almost 15 minutes, Kentucky was up 21 points.

The current Wildcats are not the first Kentucky team to struggle for this late in the season.

Kentucky seemed on the verge of putting this game out of reach early.

The Vols hammered Florida and did the same to SC for much of the second half.

Kevin Punter Jr.- Punter changed his shot from last year and was able to sink Kentucky with it this year.

In its game at Tennessee on Tuesday night, the No. 20 Wildcats squandered a 21-point first half lead and fell to the Volunteers by a final score of 84-77. Tuesday night’s 84-77 upset of No. 20 Kentucky was one of those nights.

Robert Hubbs III added an exclamation point dunk with 1:30 left and Punter added free throws down the stretch to ice the Wildcats. Calipari said. “Why are you trying to break off?”

Tennessee followed up its worst loss of the season with its undisputed best win. I’ve been sitting in that upper deck my whole life watching some fairly good Tennessee teams play really good basketball against Kentucky for something like 32 minutes.

“We kind of joked around about it, we actually said we liked it better being down instead of being up at the half”, Moore said. “‘You ready, you ready, and then the stuff gets too rough and I just back up”. “We hit a few shots and got going, and we were down like six”.

“We always go out and compete no matter who we’re playing”. Kentucky, who at one point had doubled-up the Vols in the rebounding department 18 to 9 in their early run, ended up losing the war on the glass by a single rebound.

Junior forward Marcus Lee and freshman forward Skal Labissiere combined for just four points and five rebounds. Kentucky took No. 4 Kansas to overtime in Allen Fieldhouse. “Our guys deserve all the credit in the world, the way they hung in”.

“We gotta do some soul searching, (as) individuals, as a staff (and) we gotta keep looking at ways we can help this team get better and demand more, more winning plays”, Calipari said.

It didn’t start out that way, however. Jamal Murray is averaging 17.4 points and 4.9 rebounds while Tyler Ulis is averaging 16.1 points and 6.2 assists.

Now with Hawkins back in the fold, Coach Cal and the Wildcats will look to get both he and his game back up to speed as the team enters the regular season’s final month. Coach Rick Barnes thought that was a good time to remind them, hey, you’ve been here before. Teaching them how to win and how to finish off games is on me. “I mean, he hadn’t played in a month and I put him in this game to make shots?”

Their big men were in foul trouble throughout the game and their most productive frontcourt player, Alex Poythress, fouled out with 3:27 to go. I don’t know how to pull for this one. “Obviously when we’ve been in some slumps here and there, but when it comes to scoring the ball, I don’t think we have a problem in that department”. Kentucky regained the lead when Ulis and Derek Willis hit 3-pointers on the next two possessions, but Tennessee kept clawing back and regained the lead at 65-63 on Hubbs’ basket with 9:41 remaining and held on.

“We understand why we lost”, Punter said. “And we learned a lot from that game”. We understand what we have to do it, but we have to go out there and do it. When we watch the Kentucky game live streaming or on TV tonight, pay special attention to Ulis and see if he gets any rest as the game wears on.