Kentucky can't expect Tennessee to play the same in their second matchup

Mark Pope knows the Vols will have a better game plan this time.

Jan 28, 2025; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; Kentucky Wildcats forward Ansley Almonor (15) moves the ball against Tennessee Volunteers forward Igor Milicic Jr. (7) during the first half at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-Imagn Images | Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

Kentucky basketball is getting set to take on the Tennessee Volunteers for the second time in two weeks, which marks the first time the Wildcats have played a team twice so far this season. In the first matchup, Kentucky caught fire from deep and had a hot start in Knoxville that sparked a big road win. Tennessee, the #1 defense in college basketball, did not look like that the first time around playing Kentucky.

Not only did Kentucky knock down a bunch of threes, but Tennessee shot 45 threes and made just 11 of them, and the Wildcats were able to control the pace for much of the game. Now, with the Vols heading to Lexington for another face-off, Mark Pope knows that they'll have a different game plan this time, and it likely won't be the exact results fans saw in the first matchup between the two teams just a few weeks ago.

"That's the fun of the second game of the series, because you're anticipating. ...What you do on a raw level is break down all of the games they played since then, and especially you're own game film. What you do is, you don't really anticipate you're playing against the same team that you played. You anticipate you're playing against a team that's making all the adjustments to take away the things that you were successful with in that game. There's real gamesmanship that goes into it. Clearly, Tennessee is the number one, two or three defensive team in the country, depending on what metrics you look at. They're one of the top offensive rebounding teams in the country. ...They're potent. Very, very potent in both those ways. Both of those things will continue to be mainstays of the challenges in facing them. But they're also running some new actions. They have two distinct actions they've added since we played them. There's a little bit of a different personnel package that we'll have because we will have Lamont Butler."

Pope on facing Tennessee a second time.

Tennessee is going to make sure they don't make the same mistakes they made in the last matchup, and Kentucky is going to try to do much of what made them so successful in the road win in Knoxville two weeks ago. Mark Pope and his Kentucky team aren't expecting the same Tennessee squad the second time around.