Kentucky heads to Tennessee in hopes of an upset

Showdown in Knoxville-
Early in conference play, the second game in fact, Kentucky travels to Knoxville to take on a bumped and bruised Tennessee Volunteer team that have dropped out of the USA Today Top 25 for the first time all year.

Adding to the hurt ego of being dropped out of the rankings, star player and preseason ALL SEC Player of the Year, Tyler Smith is nursing a bruised knee and will be playing at less than 100%.
Tennessee has seen a lot of struggles of late dropping two of their last three games and nearly faltering to Georgia in the conference opener. The Vols trailed by more than 10 points mid way through the second half, but were able to eek out a victory 86-77.

Radio voice Bob Kessling sees a lot of turmoil in this Volunteer team.

“ The freshmen, for whatever reason, have had a hard time in buying into the defensive philosophy”, as he continued to say “Sometimes they have got into the position where they have four guys playing great defense and one freshman that is lost out there and that has hurt them in several occasions.”

With a weaker than past years Volunteer team the Kentucky Wildcats look to win in Tennessee for the first time since March 1, 2006. Since that loss, Tennessee has not lost a home SEC game since and is riding a 16 game win streak into this colossal match up.

Kentucky and Tennessee should be exciting as the match-up pairs the top two scoring offenses in the SEC. Tennessee is 6th in the nation in scoring with nearly 85 points a game, while Kentucky is 25th respectively, averaging 80 points a game.

With scoring to be at a maximum, the game will be based on limiting errors, something Kentucky knows all to well.

In the four losses Kentucky has suffered this season, the Wildcats average 21.75 turnovers per game. In order to have a chance in Knoxville, this stat must get better.

Yesterday Jodie Meeks said, “ We need to cut down turnovers in conference play if we want to do much of anything this year.”

And this year, needs to start tonight with Tennessee. A win would give the Wildcats an early edge in the wide open SEC and maybe a slot in the top-25.

Game starts at 9 pm EST.