{"id":589456,"date":"2026-02-08T01:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/589456\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T01:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:12:15","slug":"kentucky-vs-tennessee-game-thread-and-pregame-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/589456\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky vs. Tennessee game thread and pregame reading"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aseaofblue.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Kentucky Wildcats;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Kentucky Wildcats<\/a> will take on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rockytoptalk.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Tennessee Volunteers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Tennessee Volunteers<\/a> on Saturday night in Lexington. Game time is set for 8:30 PM ET on ESPN. The Cats are 1.5-point favorites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mark Pope\u2019s squad is now 16-7 on the season after winning two straight games and seven of the last eight. Last week, the Cats were embarrassed by the Vanderbilt Commodores, but they\u2019ve bounced back with big wins over the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Oklahoma Sooners.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">During their recent positive trend, the Cats beat the Vols 80-78 in Knoxville. In that game, Kentucky trailed by as many as 17 points, but they clawed their way back to a miraculous win. Since then, both teams have played well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Rick Barnes\u2019 team is 16-6 on the season after winning four straight games following that disappointing loss to the Cats. That win streak includes wins at Alabama and at Georgia. If anything, this season has shown us that the SEC is down and there are a lot of \u201cmid\u201d teams, leaving the door open for Kentucky to make a move.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The Cats control their own fate as they sit just a half game out of first place in the conference, but the Vols are right on their heels. The keys to this one will be limiting Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespie and Nate Ament, while matching the physicality of Jaylen Carey and Co. down low and on the glass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Saturday is a really good chance for Kentucky to cement its place in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Pregame reading<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">___________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Let\u2019s Go CATS!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kentucky Wildcats will take on the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night in Lexington. Game time is set&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[598,7,217,3075,231,772,1544,2400,1797,69258,20705],"class_list":{"0":"post-589456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-arkansas-razorbacks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-kentucky-wildcats","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-basketball","14":"tag-ncaab","15":"tag-oklahoma-sooners","16":"tag-tennessee-volunteers","17":"tag-the-cats","18":"tag-vanderbilt-commodores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116032357040516469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}