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Published Jan 29, 2025
By the Numbers: UK 78, Tennessee 73
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Justin Rowland  •  CatsIllustrated
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Kentucky notched yet another huge victory in Mark Pope's first season on Tuesday night, going into Knoxville and knocking off the top-10 Tennessee Volunteers without Lamont Butler and with Andrew Carr only briefly appearing.

Here are some of the most interesting and telling stats from the Cats' 78-73 win against the Volunteers, which snapped a two-game losing streak and put Kentucky at 4-3 in the nation's toughest conference.

78 ... Points scored by Kentucky. It was the most points Tennessee has given up this year. Earlier in the day Jon Rothstein pointed out that something had to give between the Cats' offense and Vols' defense. UK's 48 points in the second half meant it broke in Kentucky's favor.

50% ... UK's field goal percentage (25/50 FG) and also the Cats' 3-point percentage (12/24). We knew that most recipes for an upset without Butler would include Kentucky shooting well from outside and that's exactly what happened.

+20 ... Amari Williams' +/- for the game, easily the best for either team. Williams played 24 minutes and the Cats outscored the Vols by 20 points during that stretch of time. Williams was efficient (3/5 FG, 10 points) and active (15 rebounds, four assists).

This was also the number of points in the paint for Kentucky in the game. UK got a lot of points from the three-point arc and the free throw line. The Vols outscored the Cats 24-20 in the paint.

5:20 ... Kentucky had no field goals in the final 5:20 of the game. There were opportunities for Kentucky to put the game away much sooner than it did. However, Tennessee only made 1/12 field goals to finish the game.

5 ... The number of times Tennessee turned the ball over on Tuesday night. That compared to 13 turnovers for the Wildcats.

4 ... Three pointers made by both Koby Brea (18 points) and Ansley Almonor (12 points). Those two accounted for two-thirds of Kentucky's makes from outside the arc and combined to shoot 8/16 from outside.

1:22 ... The amount of game time that elapsed while Tennessee was leading a game. This was a contest controlled by Kentucky from start to finish with the exception of the Vols' run late in the first half.

1/11 ... Zakai Zeigler's three-point numbers for the game. The Tennessee point guard was 4/7 inside the arc. He did have six assists, two steals and only one turnover.

-16 ... Brandon Garrison's +/- for the game. The Oklahoma State transfer scored two points and had two rebounds, but in his 16 minutes the Vols outplayed the Cats by a significant margin.

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