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Tennessee got the last laugh against Kentucky, and we got a reminder of how far the Vols have come
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Kentucky found out the hard way that beating a team 3 times might indeed be the hardest thing to do in sports. Not very far behind that list of challenging feats is knocking this version of Tennessee out of the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky found that out the hard way, too.
It’s a 2-year trend that’s undeniable. Getting rid of the Vols in March is like shooting 50% from 3-point range, which Kentucky did in the first 2 meetings, both of which finished in the Wildcats’ favor.
This time? Not so fortunate.
Not only was Tennessee’s 78-65 victory in the Sweet 16 not even close — UK’s last single-digit deficit was with 8:55 to play in the first half — it was a reminder that these aren’t your dad’s Vols. Shoot, these aren’t even your older brother’s Vols.
You know what I’m talking about. Or rather, who I’m talking about. Your older brother’s Vols were the team who would inevitably show up to the NCAA Tournament, endure some prolonged scoring drought, blow a lead and watch the season end at the hands of a lower-seeded team. The Vols’ hopes of a first Final Four berth used to end in excruciating fashion on an annual basis. Whether that was Loyola, Michigan or FAU, you used to be able to set your watch to Rick Barnes being the face of “that’s why this tournament is so hard.”
In 2 years, Barnes has completely changed that. Think about it. Tennessee, in its 3rd-consecutive Sweet 16 trip, flipped the script on a Kentucky team that appeared to have its number. It didn’t take some heroic performance from Chaz Lanier, either. Don’t get it twisted. Lanier was still excellent with 17 points, but the guy who made 10 3-pointers in the Vols’ first 2 NCAA Tournament games was held to 1-for-6 from deep against UK.
You could point to a variety of other factors that went beyond Lanier. Zakai Zeigler was in complete control, and he paced the Vols with a game-high 18 points and 10 assists. Jordan Gainey continued his dominance of late and he poured in 16 off the bench. Jamai Maschak did what elite, veteran defenders do and racked up 6 of Tennessee’s 9 steals.
It wasn’t an individual effort that proved to be the difference. A 14-7 offensive rebounding advantage was pivotal, as was the Vols dominating the second-chance points with a 19-5 edge. Did Tennessee want it more? It looked like it.
No sequence better encapsulated that than when Tennessee held a 12-point lead with just under 9 minutes. Lanier missed a floater in the lane, which was cleaned up by a thunderous Felix Okpara put-back dunk. On the ensuing in-bounds pass, Lanier stole it and fed it to Zeigler, who drained a 3-pointer that squashed any notion that Tennessee’s pre-2024 scoring woes would surface.
There weren’t any cards that Mark Pope could’ve played on Friday. And to be fair, Kentucky made history just by earning that Sweet 16 matchup. The Cats became the first team to reach the second weekend after returning 0 points from the previous year’s roster. Pope getting the Cats to their first Sweet 16 since 2019 was significant. His team just ran into a buzzsaw.
It’s fair to call Tennessee that. It dominated its first 3 games of this tournament, and it did so with its standard suffocating defense. Kentucky actually put up more points than either of the Vols’ first 2 opponents, but a 28-point first half (3 of which came via a buzzer-beater 3) made it obvious early on that this was a Tennessee kind of night.
Whether there are several more Tennessee kind of nights remains to be seen. Lord knows the Vols are plenty familiar with being in this spot with that first Final Four within reach. Either way, though, let’s not dismiss what consecutive Elite Eight berths entailed. It included Barnes plucking an elite mid-major scorer and watching him blossom into a star. It included Zeigler becoming one of the best, toughest guards in America. It included changing the narrative about a program that was defined by its season-ending losses.
Whoever knocks out Tennessee is going to be in for a heavyweight fight. Maybe it’s not realistic to say that the Vols have “title or bust” expectations because of the well-documented unfamiliarity on that stage, but if you didn’t know any better, you’d think was a team with several Final Four trips in recent memory and not a team 1 win away from program history.
As Lanier fielded questions with a busted lip in the postgame interview, his Tennessee teammates all came over and surrounded him.
“It’s just toughness,” Lanier said. “We’re a tough team. That’s what we hang our hat on every night for 40 minutes. I’m just proud of my guys.”
It’ll take more than a few landed punches to last 40 minutes with this version of Tennessee. It’ll be a remarkable feat for whoever can deliver the knockout blow.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
