Tennessee players believe they’ve changed since last playing Kentucky, but the Wildcats have not
We love it when a rivalry gets chatty…
Kentucky’s defense has steadily improved over the last several weeks. You’ve probably heard about the numbers at this point. After giving up 98 points on the road to Ole Miss on Feb. 4, the Wildcats have ranked 10th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency since, per BartTorvik. UK is 9-4 in 13 games since then and hasn’t allowed more than 75 points in either NCAA Tournament game.
One of those 13 games came against Tennessee — the second time Kentucky beat the Volunteers during the regular season. UT finished with just 64 points and shot 3-18 from deep. Kentucky has only continued to make leaps on defense since then. But some Tennessee players don’t believe there has been much of a change from the Wildcats’ approach compared to the two times they faced off (and lost) during the regular season.
“I think they’ve been the same defense that I’ve watched the last couple of games,” Guard Jahmai Mashack said Thursday. “They really rely on you to make mistakes and I think if you allow yourself to make mistakes it’s going to make their defense look better.
“I don’t think they do anything else special that tries to make their defense look better.”
Even offensively, where Kentucky has ranked 21st in the country since that Ole Miss defeat (an admittedly minor slip from early in the season), the Vols haven’t noticed much of a change despite UK’s seemingly endless rotation of injuries.
“Through the whole season, they’ve been really consistent, they’ve been shooting the ball really well and I don’t really see anything new from them,” Forward Igor Miličić Jr. said. “They shoot when they’re open, they shoot in transition, they give the ball to the big man and just run around. They’re the same team that we played two times and I feel like we are a different team.”
Tennessee has been playing like a different team, especially since losing to Kentucky a second time on Feb. 11. But not in the way you might think. Rick Barnes‘ club is doing the opposite of Mark Pope‘s team — improving on offense, but slipping on defense. Tennessee ranks 11th nationally in offense, per BartTorvik, since that Feb. 11 loss to UK but only 41st in defense. UT is 9-2 since then.
“It’s night and day,” Mashack said when asked how much different Tennessee is now compared to the last matchup with UK. “I feel like we’re not even at our peak yet.”
Pope has spotted those changes though. He saw a new wrinkle in Tennessee’s trapping defense while watching them play in the NCAA Tournament. Offensively, multiple Kentucky players said during Thursday’s open locker room that the Vols are playing much more aggressively. A couple of them both noted how Zakai Zeigler is looking to score more and that the team as a whole is running more actions to set up shots.
Round three of this battle could look a lot different than the first two. Even if some Tennessee players won’t say it publicly, Kentucky is a different team too.
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