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Jaylen Carey shoves Otega Oweh, Mark Pope breaks up fight after Kentucky win over Tennessee

ns_headshot_2024-clearby: Nick Schultz01/17/26NickSchultz_7

As the buzzer sounded on Kentucky’s win over Tennessee, tempers flared. A fight started to break out after Vols forward Jaylen Carey shoved Wildcats forward Otega Oweh, and UK coach Mark Pope sprinted in to break it up.

The incident occurred after Ja’Kobi Gillespie intentionally missed a free throw to try and give Tennessee a chance to tie things up with 2.6 seconds left. A battle ensued for the rebound, but Carey’s layup missed as time expired – sealing UK’s victory.

However, Carey took exception to something that was said after the miss and shoved Oweh in the aftermath. That set off a brief altercation between the two teams, and Pope was seen pulling players away from the scrum after running over at full speed from the bench. Cooler heads prevailed from there as the two teams headed toward their respective locker rooms.

Another angle showed Oweh swatting away Nate Ament’s hand as Carey walked away. That’s when Carey turned and defended his freshman teammate as tensions began to boil over.

Saturday’s victory marks a second straight on the road for Kentucky. It’s also yet another comeback after getting down big.

Just like Wednesday’s victory over LSU, Kentucky found itself in a deep hole early. The Wildcats trailed Tennessee 41-24 with 3:25 to go in the first half. However, UK rattled off a 7-1 run to go into the break trailing 42-31.

Then, just like against LSU, the ‘Cats kicked it into gear out of the break. Kentucky outscored Tennessee 49-36 in the final 20 minutes, going 18-of-36 from the field – including 6-of-10 from three-point territory. UK’s first lead came with 1:46 to go when Mouhamed Dioubate hit a jumper to go up 76-75.

From there, the two teams went back and forth, but Denzel Aberdeen’s layup with 16 seconds left put Kentucky ahead 80-77. Gillespie added one free throw before his intentional miss, but that was all Tennessee could muster from there as UK got the 80-78 win.

Aberdeen lede Kentucky in scoring with 22 points while three players – Oweh, Collin Chandler and Jasper Johnson – all added 12. The Wildcats also took advantage of 12 Tennessee turnover, turning those into 15 points.

With Saturday’s win, Kentucky improved to 12-6 overall and 3-2 in SEC play. In fact, the Wildcats are now just a half game back of the five 3-1 teams in the standings. Tennessee, meanwhile, is now 12-6 overall and 2-3 in conference action.