INDIANAPOLIS — No. 3 Kentucky and No. 2 Tennessee will tangle for the third time this season, and the stakes are higher than ever in the first NCAA Tournament meeting between the rivals.
The Southeastern Conference foes collide in the first of two Midwest Region semifinal games at Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday night. The winner sticks around to play for a ticket to the Final Four against the winner of the other semifinal between No. 1 seed Houston and No. 4 seed Purdue.
“I don’t think we have to do anything different,” Wildcats guard Koby Brea said Thursday. “I think we’ve got to do the same thing against every team, consider to be ourselves. We trust each other on the court. We know what we’re capable of doing. Tennessee is obviously a really good opponent. Gotta give them respect and we’re coming into the game with the same mentality that we came into the first two.”
Tennessee (29-7) reached the Sweet 16 for the third consecutive season and can make it back-to-back Elite Eight appearances for the first time in school history. Among SEC schools, only Kentucky, with nine, has more second-weekend NCAA Tournament trips than Tennessee (eight) since 2007.
Kentucky (24-11) hasn’t defeated Tennessee three times in a season since 2005. Head coach Mark Pope said the Wildcats can’t count on any benefit from wins in Knoxville in January or the Feb. 11 win at Rupp Arena, when Kentucky limited Tennessee to 16.7 percent 3-point shooting (3 of 18).
“I think mostly this is a free-standing game. This is a great Tennessee team,” Pope said. “It’s one of the top teams in the country. It’s the best defensive team in the country. They have one of the best offensive teams in the country.”
Hired to return to the program he played for in the 1990s, Pope replaced John Calipari as head coach a year ago amid a run of postseason disappointments. He began rebuilding his roster from scratch, and the vision is coming into focus with a team that found another gear over the last month. The Wildcats shot the lights out in Milwaukee and clamped 3-point shooters for Troy and Illinois, holding them to a combined 17-of-64 (.266) from 3-point range.
Tennessee had to replace All-American and SEC Player of the Year Dalton Knecht after reaching the Elite Eight in 2024. Barnes landed Chaz Lanier, a North Florida transfer who arrived in time to fuel the return trip in progress. Lanier set the school record with 120 3-pointers (and counting), was First Team All-SEC and honorable mention All-American in 2024-25. Thus far, he hasn’t blinked under the lights of the NCAA Tournament with 49 points in two games.
“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Lanier said. “It was super fun. All the bright lights. … We just try to stay where our feet are planted with the mantality we’re going to go out and handle business.”
Brea is leading the Wildcats’ offensive barrage in the tournament, averaging 18 points per game, just ahead of Otega Oweh (17.5), who has 13 games with 20-plus points this season. Kentucky is shooting 38.3 percent from 3-point range in the NCAA Tournament and had 12 makes in each of the wins over Tennessee this season.
“We know we’re the best defense in the country,” Vols point guard Zakai Zeigler said. “We didn’t show that either times that we played them. Offense is going to take care of itself. Coach Barnes lets us know that all the time. … But I don’t feel we did that in either game. We’ll make sure to do better this time.”
Barnes has beaten Kentucky 11 times since he arrived in 2015, more than any other SEC opponent, but has only one Final Four appearance (2003 with Texas). The Vols have never reached the Final Four.
Jahmai Mashack said this group of Vols, a senior-laden team, wants to be the one to drive the breakthrough.
“Nobody deserves a national championship (more) than the city of Knoxville and coach Barnes,” Mashack said. “If you look and sit down and pay attention to the fan base they’re nothing short of amazing. … And that’s what I’m fighting for. That’s what I’m fighting to try to get. Like I said, it’s not for me. It’s not even for my teammates. It’s for the fans and the city of Knoxville that’s been waiting for so long for something like this because they’ve come so close and have always almost gotten there and have had some great teams. I want to be the player and the team to come out and get that for them because they deserve nothing short of a national championship.”
–Jeff Reynolds, Field Level Media
