Kentucky Overcomes Tennessee 74-71, Completing Regular Season Sweep
- KySportsStyle.com
- 54 minutes ago
- 2 min read
By Hayden Kennedy
KySportsStyle.com Magazine
Kentucky is on a roll.
The Wildcats continued to show their dominance Saturday night, winning eight of the last nine matchups, as UK overcame No 25 Tennessee 74-71.
With the win, Kentucky improved to 17-7 overall, 8-3 in SEC. The Wildcats have solidified their spot at second place in the conference, trailing only the Florida Gators, who have a 8-2 mark.
And UK will travel to Gainesville to take on defending national champion Florida on Saturday, February 14. The contest will be shown on ABC at 3:00 p.m. ET.
Against the Volunteers, Kentucky once again struggled in the first half, falling 14 points behind at the intermission. But the Cats in the second half kept fighting, slowly chipping away at the lead. With 32 seconds left, UK sophomore Colin Chandler hit a massive three-pointer to go up by one. Big Blue Nation showed once again why they are the best fans in the world, blowing the roof off Rupp Arena.
The 14-point halftime deficit was the largest ever overcome by UK in Rupp Arena history. The previous record was overcoming a 12-point deficit against Arkansas in 2006.
Chandler was asked after the game if he was scared to take the critical shot, saying, “Scared? For sure not, for sure not. It’s like I’ve been saying, it’s what you dream of, and it’s just coming in the flow of our offense. I’m just grateful for that moment.”
Chandler gunned in nine points, all on 3-pointers, including the go-ahead downtown jumper with 32 seconds to play.
UK's Otega Oweh finished with 21 points and four rebounds, his 11th 20-point game, all of which have come in the last 15 games.
On Oweh's performance, Kentucky coach Mark Pope said, “He is just a warrior, his competitive spirit continues to grow. He’s putting together a season. I don’t know, he’s got to be somewhere in pretty exclusive company with what he’s doing in SEC play right now. It’s unbelievable how consistent he is. It’s pretty special.”
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Kentucky wore the denim jerseys for the first time in 30 years, made famous by the 1996 national championship team, which was honored during a pregame ceremony.
Commented Oweh on the 1996 team, "The Untouchables," being in attendance, “It was awesome. I feel like it was a really cool night. I came to shoot around and brought out the new jerseys for them. We just got to honor and celebrate them and what they did. We dream and aspire for that every single day. To see them do it and then come back and show love, it’s easy to kind of get all rattled up and wrap our minds around that, but we saw the game to go out there and play. Coach both did a really good job of making sure that we were locked in and still going out there and winning the game.”
Hayden Kennedy, a recent UK graduate, is a contributing writer from Lexington.
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