Tennessee 62 - 65 Kentucky (No. 2,069)

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the trip to Knoxville is the ultimate gut-check for any UK team. You're a highly-rated recruit, you're used to playing in big games, you've probably never heard of many players on the UT team, and if you look at them, you'll probably see that they don't even look like normal basketball players. Every Tennessee team -- no matter the coach or the year -- seems to feature the following line-up:

Two really big and wide guys who like to bang people around in the lane, but who shoot well from the line against us;

A white guy with a mustache -- he always has a mustache for some reason -- who shoots three's;

A bunch of little skinny guys who run around with enormous energy for 40 minutes.

Looking at this crowd, the typical McDonald's All-America thinks to himself that this game should be no big deal. And then they start playing "Rocky Top" and the officials start calling charges on UK, and the UT guys hit some threes, and the wide guys scoop up a bunch of rebounds, and the next thing you know you're in trouble.

Today's game got off to the usual start. UT hit its first two three's of the game. Coach Cal got hit with a phantom technical foul. Jones got into foul trouble. Teague got hit with some absurd charging calls. Big Tennessee guys threw themselves all over the paint. Little Tennessee guys chased our guards all over the floor. "Rocky Top" was played over and over. The Vols ended the first half on a 9-0 run to take a 32-28 lead into the locker room, and with 13:05 to go in the game, UT led 47-39.

By this point, however, the Cats had finally taken the measure of their opponent. Since UT was playing a really tight man-to-man, the Cats couldn't score from the outside. So they kept attacking the basket. Over and over and over. Davis ended up with 18 points and 8 rebounds. Kidd-Gilchrist finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds. Jones got 10 points and 5 rebounds -- he would have had more, but he was fouled out on some of the worst calls I've ever seen. For once, the Cats won the rebounding battle in Knoxville, out-rebounding the Vols 33-29. And on defense, the Cats stopped UT's efforts to penetrate, and ended one Vol possession after another with a steal (8 in all) or a block (also 8).

Slowly the Cats clawed their way back. An 8-1 run made the score 48-47 Tennessee with 10:55 to go. Tennessee scored, but a three-point play from Kidd-Gilcrist tied things at 50 with 9:28 left. After a few minutes of very hard-noted defense, only 5:49 were left and the score was tied at 54. Here's what the Cats did after that:

Teague drew a foul and made one of two free throws. 55-54, UK

UT missed a three-pointer, Davis got the rebound

MKG made a three-pointer. 58-54, UK

Miller got a steal, but Teague was called for a phantom charge

UT missed a layup, Lamb got the rebound

Lamb made two free throws. 60-54, UK

UT missed a dunk, MKG got the rebound

Lamb missed a jump shot, but MKG got the rebound again

Davis made a fantastic turnaround shot. 62-54, UK with 54 seconds to go.

At that point, UK appeared to be safe. But the Vols hit two three-pointers, and Lamb missed the front end of a one-and-one, and suddenly the score was 62-60 with 19 seconds to go and Darius Miller at the line. Miller had a pretty rough game -- 1-4 from the field and only 1 rebound -- but he nailed both free throws and the Cats were pretty much home free.

This game will hurt UK's ranking under Ken Pomeroy's system -- he had projected a 74-61 win for the Cats. But make no mistake: this was a very, very difficult game, and the Cats showed great maturity and discipline to pull it out. I have seen many great UK basketball teams who couldn't solve the riddle of Knoxville, and I am very impressed that these guys did so.

Shooting note: the Cats took only five three-pointers in this game, the fewest I can remember, but they made two (Wiltjer and MKG). I thought they were very smart to keep working the ball inside instead of taking three's. UK also went 21-29 from the line, which is 72.4 percent -- quite good. It is worrisome, however, that Lamb missed another front end of a late game one-and-one.

I will close with one final note. Back in November, Kentucky beat Tennessee 10-7 in football, and the Cats nipped the Vols 65-62 today. Those victories may not look all that impressive, but they are historic. Since 1960, the 1977-78 school year is the only other school year in which the Cats beat UT in football and won the basketball game in Knoxville. So this is truly a day to celebrate.

And besides, the 1978 UK basketball team won the national championship.