In our regular postgame feature, the Cats Illustrated staff offers its first impressions from Kentucky's 103-92 loss to No. 5 Tennessee on Saturday night at Rupp Arena.
JUSTIN ROWLAND:
That was another blow for the Big Blue Nation, for this team, for John Calipari. This team just doesn't appear to be tough enough. It manifests on the boards at times. On defense pretty much all the time. Tennessee was the more mature, deliberate team and it felt like they were in pretty complete control from start to finish even though Dillingham's big game kept it respectable. This team seems to have real limitations that are built-in on defense, although Wagner would have helped. You just never know who's going to be available at this point.
DAVID SISK:
Kentucky gave up 103 points. That’s all we need to know. In the last three home games they’ve given up 96, 94, and 103 points for a 97.7 average. At one point we asked whether the defense would be good enough on a bad shooting night. Now we ask if it’s good enough when they’re shooting the lights out. Kentucky scored 91 and 92 points respectively this week and went winless in Rupp Arena. I find it very interesting that Rick Barnes had no thoughts of slowing it down and making it a street fight as he normally does. Instead he decided to run with Kentucky because he knew he could score at will. In doing so, the Vols went from a 59-point performance against South Carolina to 103 Saturday night. There are do many things here that just makes me scratch my head about this team.
JEFF DRUMMOND:
It feels way too easy to use a Groundhog Day joke here, but Kentucky keeps rolling out of bed and offering no defensive resistance to anyone it plays. Tennessee came to town with Dalton Knecht lighting up the SEC but the rest of the Vols struggling to shoot it from the perimeter. The Cats somehow found a way to slow down Knecht (a modest 16 points after scoring 30-plus in four of his last five games) and still get run off the court as veterans Zakai Zeigler, Santiago Vescovi, and Josiah-Jordan James all shot the lights out at Rupp Arena. They combined to go 10-for-19 from the 3-point line after entering the game shooting a combined 32.5% from the arc this season. James was 1-for-18 in SEC play and knocked down four tonight. That's an indictment of how far UK has descended. There's not a whole lot left to say about this other than UK needs a dramatic (miracle?) turnaround on defense if they have any aspirations left for March.
