Tennessee basketball 2019-2020 season recap: Vols top five wins
1. At No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats
Tennessee wins 81-73
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
There’s no debate about this one. Right after Tennessee basketball held off the Florida Gators at home, they were set to travel to Rupp Arena to face a Kentucky Wildcats team that had beaten them weeks earlier.
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The Vols had Josiah-Jordan James back this time, but there was little faith they could pull out the win. UK was on an eight-game winning streak, and they were 24-5 overall. As the game tipped off, John Calipari’s team took complete control, going up 42-31 at halftime and extending that lead to 17 points less than 17 minutes left to go in the second half.
That’s when Rick Barnes’ team, which had been blowing leads throughout February, found itself. John Fulkerson, who had been improving down the stretch, put together his best performance yet with a career-high 27 points along with six rebounds and led an epic comeback in UT’s most shocking win over Kentucky since Barnes arrived.
In addition to Fulkerson, James became a star. After that 17-point deficit, James scored 16 points down the stretch, which was all of his scoring. Yves Pons got just as hot, scoring 12 of his 15 points during that stretch and hitting all three of his three-point attempts in the game. Jordan Bowden did his part with 11 points, and Jalen Johnson added eight off the bench.
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In the process, Tennessee basketball led an epic comeback for a shocking 81-73 win. They made sure to hit their free throws down the stretch, winning their fifth game against Kentucky over the last three years. So this was obviously the top win of the year for them.