For Kentucky, the game before The Game was a tough one on paper — a Tuesday night road contest against Rick Barnes’ Tennessee Vols, who were ranked No. 1 in the country just a few weeks ago and listed as 10.5-point favorites at tip-off. Also: UT entered with an 11-0 record at home this season featuring nothing but double-digit victories.
So it was a big challenge for Kentucky, undeniably.
But the Wildcats handled it, impressively.
Final score: UK 78, UT 73.
The five-point victory represented the biggest win anybody had Tuesday, is one of the best wins anybody has this season, and it allowed the Wildcats to move to No. 8 in Wednesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Auburn remains No. 1 for the 22nd consecutive day.
Kentucky snaps two-game skid, wins at Tennessee with Arkansas up next in John Calipari’s Rupp Arena return
David Cobb
As I said last week on Inside College Basketball, the national coach of the year race is fluid, there are lots of sensible candidates, and it’s far from over. But if I had to submit a ballot this morning, the name at the top would still be the same name I said last week — Kentucky’s Mark Pope.
Could somebody else reasonably go with Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, Duke‘s Jon Scheyer, Iowa State‘s TJ Otzelberger or Michigan State’s Tom Izzo? Yes, of course. Are there other coaches in their first years at their schools also doing knockout jobs? Absolutely, yes — among them Louisville‘s Pat Kelsey, Michigan‘s Dusty May, Vanderbilt‘s Mark Byington, West Virginia‘s Darian DeVries, Utah State‘s Jerrod Calhoun and Drake‘s Ben McCollum. (Last offseason could go down as one of the best offseasons of coaching hires in recent history). But the truth is that no coach has done as well in his first year at his new school as Pope has done in his first year at his alma mater.
His Wildcats were unranked in the preseason Top 25 And 1 but are now No. 8 thanks to a resume featuring 7 Quadrant 1 wins, which is a number that ranks third nationally behind only Auburn and Oregon. Bottom line, when it comes to COY races, whether you like coaches of true title contenders or coaches who overachieve, Pope happens to check both boxes after inheriting zero returning players from the previous staff, which forced him to totally rebuild through the transfer portal in one offseason.
Recent history suggests that approach doesn’t often lead to success. But Pope has made it work while reinvigorating a fanbase that badly needed it.
Next up for UK: John Calipari!
The former Kentucky coach is bringing his Arkansas Razorbacks to Rupp Arena this Saturday for the first time since leaving Kentucky last April after spending 15 years guiding the program to four Final Fours and one national championship. Asked this week how he’ll feel returning to the place where he became a Naismith Hall of Famer and won the 2012 NCAA Tournament, Calipari acknowledged he doesn’t really know.
“Can’t say I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I’m looking forward to coaching. But to walk in, the vibe, I don’t know how I’m gonna take it, to be honest with you. I mean, that was a special time in my life and in [my wife] Ellen’s life. Fifteen years we gave. Fifteen.”