Plavsic may be busy in rematch
Tennessee 7-foot-1 senior forward Uros Plavsic played the game of his career last month against Kentucky.
Is the sequel set for Saturday afternoon?
The former Hamilton Heights standout logged more than 26 minutes on Jan. 14 in the Volunteers’ 63-56 upset loss to the Wildcats inside Thompson-Boling Arena, racking up 19 points on 9-of-11 shooting. Plavsic dueled Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe down low and actually outscored the reigning Wooden Award winner, but Tshiebwe’s performance contained a more complete 15 points and 13 rebounds.
Wildcats coach John Calipari admitted afterward that the objective was to frustrate the Vols on the perimeter and sacrifice points to Plavsic, whose minutes against Kentucky essentially match those of his past three games combined.
“We’ve talked all year about consistency, and it’s not just on one side of the ball,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said Friday on a Zoom call. “We feel confident with Uros, Olivier (Nkamhoua), Jonas (Aidoo) and Tobe (Awaka), and we go into every game knowing we’re going to need every one of those guys. Night to night, some guys might not have what they like to have and what we need them to have, and we’ll go to the next guy.
“The last time we played them, Uros did score the ball well down there for us, but we don’t go into this game thinking it will be played the same way. We know Kentucky is going to make adjustments and do some different things, as we will, too. We’ll prepare with everybody knowing that we need them all, and we’ll see what personality the game takes on.”
Saturday’s rematch between the Wildcats (17-9, 8-5 Southeastern Conference) and the No. 10 Vols (20-6, 9-4) tips off at 1 in Lexington and will be televised by CBS.
Tennessee entered last month’s meeting hailed for its aggressive persona, but Kentucky proved to
be the significantly tougher team, snagging 43 rebounds to 23 by the Vols. Plavsic grabbed only three, and Tennessee’s leading rebounder the first time around — senior guard Josiah-Jordan James had five — has missed the past two games with an ankle injury and is questionable.
Freshman forward Julian Phillips (hip flexor) also will be a game-time decision, according to Barnes.
“They just absolutely annihilated us on the glass and pretty much doubled us up,” Barnes said. “We got an 8-0 lead on them, and when we started subbing, we totally lost whatever momentum we had. They captured it, and they were efficient in everything they were doing. We got anxious and started getting undisciplined — leaving shooters and doing things that you can’t do against any team that you play against.
“We had a lot of blown coverages, and they played really good basketball. We’ve got to do a better job on the boards.”
Kentucky was just 1-3 in league play before prevailing in Knoxville, but that win ignited a stretch in which the Wildcats have won seven of their past nine SEC games. Yet they have spent all season on the NCAA tournament bubble, with longtime ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi on Friday projecting the Wildcats to play North
Carolina in a First Four pairing in Dayton, Ohio.
“We’ve got everything out ahead of us,” Calipari said in a news conference following Wednesday night’s 71-68 win at Mississippi State. “There are a lot of teams that are rooting against us, because people don’t want to play us. I’ve got a good team.
“I’m just trying to convince our guys of that.”
Tennessee is coming off Wednesday night’s 68-59 dumping of No. 1 Alabama, which was the sixth win in program history over a top-ranked team. The Vols ended January with an impressive 82-71 downing of Texas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge but promptly lost three of their next four contests.
“We’ve got to stay confident, and we’ve got to stay composed,” Tennessee sophomore guard Jahmai Mashack said Friday. “This is basketball. It’s going to go up and down. We’re never going to have a perfect game, and especially in these stretches of games that are really tough. We’ve got to stay together, and we’ve got to stay confident.”
Tennessee is 77-159 overall against Kentucky and just 19-92 against the Wildcats in Lexington. The Vols are 10-8 against Kentucky under Barnes, going 5-3 in Knoxville, 3-4 in Lexington and 2-1 at the SEC tournament.