Tennessee Vols vs. Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Preview 2026
Battle for the Beer Bucket? Anyone?
Volunteers vs Wildcats | Saturday Jan. 17, 2026 | Noon EST ESPN
Rick Barnes has maintained all season that eventually, “it’d all just click” for Nate Ament, and the latter part of Tuesday’s double-overtime win over Texas A&M might have been when the coin dropped.
Ament scored 19 points in the game’s final 20 minutes, including 10 in the overtimes. The freshman also recorded seven rebounds and two blocks. But the most encouraging part is that Ament looked more aggressive over those last 20 minutes than he has at maybe any other point this season.
Another welcome development against A&M was the team didn’t fold down the stretch. Tennessee had mid-2nd-half leads against Kansas, Syracuse, Illinois, and Arkansas, but faded late in those games. One Tuesday, the Vols battled the whole way and then some without wilting.
Tennessee is still the #1 offensive rebounding team in America, which is awesome.
Unfortunately the Vols need all those second chance shots because they won’t stop turning the ball over at alarming rate. UT is 275th nationally in turnover rate—by far the worst in the SEC (Mizzou is 255, no other SEC team is in the 200s or lower). In SEC play alone, the Vols turn the ball over 21% of the time (the league average is 15%, the best teams are around 11%). I can’t imagine that giving the ball away every 5th possession is sustainable.
The Vols also need someone to step into a leadership role. Bishop Boswell and Felix Okpara seemed to be more vocal in the A&M game. This team needs more of that.
As for Kentucky, the Cats were picked 2nd in the conference pre-season polls, but started off 0-2 in SEC play before wins against Mississippi State and LSU.
UK’s Otega Oweh was preseason SEC Player of the Year and leads Kentucky with 15.8 PPG.
