The Tennessee Volunteers looked to get back on track against rival Kentucky on Tuesday night at the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena following a 53-51 loss to Auburn on Saturday.
With an offense that was, well, downright offensive, and a defense that was uncharacteristically absent, Tennessee fell to Kentucky 78-73.
Igor Milicic, Jr. led the Vols with 19 points and 9 rebounds. Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler added 15 and 13 points, respectively.
Kentucky took the lead out of the gate at 12-4 with four three pointers in the first four-plus minutes. Get used to that Kentucky made three pointers thing. Was a big, big reason they prevailed.
Meanwhile, the Vols couldn’t match Kentucky on the offense end in the first ten minutes, not crossing the 10-point mark until just over 10 minutes left in the first half on a Felix Okpara slam. However, back-to-back Kentucky threes pushed the lead back out to 8 points at 21-13.
Not long after, disaster appeared to strike. Zakai Zeigler drove the ball, and he landed awkwardly on his right leg and fell to the ground. He got up hobbling significantly and jogged/limped to the locker room. Fortunately, he would return for the start of the second half, dodging significant injury.
Tennessee rallied for the final minutes of the first half with Zeigler out, going on an 8-0 run to take a 33-30 lead into the locker room.
However, the second half started where things left off with Zeigler’s absence – Kentucky controlling the action at the perimeter. Three three-pointers over a three-minute span early in the second half put the Vols down 50-42. Kentucky would keep a lead in the 7-11 point range for most of the rest of the half until Tennessee went on a late run to give themselves a shot. A Chaz Lanier three cut the lead to 71-68 inside 5 minutes left, and Thompson-Boling Arena was finally in a frenzy.
Unfortunately, Tennessee had a slew of looks from three in the final three-plus minutes, but they couldn’t get any of them to go down with the score 73-68. Zeigler missed three attempts from 3:30 to 2 minutes left. Darlinstone Dubar missed one, as did Igor Milicic, Jr. All open looks. All bricked.
Still, even with the defensive lapses at the perimeter and struggling offense, the Vols had a chance at 73-70 after two Chaz Lanier free throws with 1:06 left. However, Tennessee continued firing up threes to no avail – until Lanier finally got one to drop with 28.6 seconds left to bring the score to 74-73. After two Kentucky free throws, the Vols had 25 seconds left, but after passing it around and throwing up an off-balance Gainey three with 8 seconds left that airballed and went out of bounds, it was all but over.
Next up, Tennessee looks to bounce back against #5 Florida on Saturday at noon at Thompson-Boling Arena.