Frank Lorenzo
(1) Kentucky Wildcats (-14, 119 o/u) at Tennessee Volunteers
The No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats (25-0, 12-0 SEC) will try to earn their 26th win of the season when the visit the Tennessee Volunteers (14-10, 6-6 SEC) tonight at Thompson-Boling Arena (7:00 p.m. Eastern).
The Wildcats are the only undefeated team in the nation and fans are anxiously anticipating the NCAA’s first unbeaten season since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. But Kentucky’s stable of future NBAers isn’t looking that far ahead.
“A lot of us didn’t even know about the record,” said sophomore point guard Andrew Harrison. “We’re just trying to take it one game at a time and win every game that we play. It doesn’t matter if we don’t finish it out right. We just have to stay focused.”
Playing Tennessee on the road will be a tough game for Kentucky, despite the Volunteers losing three of their last four (including a 73-55 setback against LSU in their last outing). Mid-week conference games become harder and harder as the season progresses.
But Tennessee is well aware of the caliber of team that is headed to Knoxville this evening.
“I think it’s arguably the best team to ever be assembled,” Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall said of Kentucky. “One team I think is comparable is the team with [Stacey] Augmon and [Larry] Johnson and that group at UNLV, but this team here is right there in the talk for being the most talented team ever assembled.”
The Wildcats are 14-point favorites despite playing away from home. Tennessee is 1-9 ATS in its last ten games at home. Tennessee will be up for the game and may keep it close in the first, but look for the Wildcats to run away with this one in the second half thanks to their deep bench and far superior athleticism.
(Photo credit: Campaigner444 at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons.)
