1. March 5, 1966
The crazy part about this win is it wasn’t a late thriller, and it didn’t result in any postseason success for the Vols. This was just a crazy upset in the middle of the season for a program that Ray Mears was building.
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But it’s the one time that Tennessee basketball beat a No. 1 ranked Kentucky Wildcats team, at home or on the road, and that matters. It was enough for us to rank this game at No. 1, right where UK was ranked.
The Wildcats entered this game 23-0. They had just beaten the Vols in Lexington 78-64. A week earlier. Meanwhile, the Vols entered 13-8 and 8-6 in the SEC. They were actually very good in conference play, riding a seven-game winning streak at one point and 10-game winning streak overall, before losses at Kentucky and at the Florida Gators before that.
Still, the Wildcats entered this game as insane favorites and were led by a future legend named Pat Riley. But the Vols jumped out to a 31-28 halftime lead, shocking everybody, and they didn’t let up in the second half.
Ron Widby dropped 22 points and 8 rebounds, and Austin Robbins and Howard Bayne added double-doubles with 18 points and 13 rebounds and 12 points and 12 rebounds respectively. Jim Cornwall added 11 points, and the Vols won 69-62 in a huge thriller.
Now, this was really a meaningless game since Kentucky had already clinched the SEC Championship and pretty much locked up the top seed in the NCAA Tournament. But it was still a huge upset. And it’s worth noting that Tennessee basketball was the only team outside of the legendary Texas-Western Glory Road team in the national title that year to beat the Wildcats.