KSR's top five takeaways from yet another insane Kentucky comeback

How did that happen? Kentucky trailed, again, by double figures and as many as 17 points in the first half, only to chip away in the final 20 minutes to turn it into a second straight comeback for the ages. The Wildcats were down 18 in Baton Rouge and needed a buzzer-beating game-winner by Malachi Moreno to close it out. This time around, it was a 5-0 run in 34 seconds to turn a two-point deficit into a three-point lead to close out the 80-78 victory at Tennessee to give the program a fourth straight in Knoxville and six of the last seven.

As unlikely as it felt when Mark Pope’s group sat at 9-6 on the year with back-to-back losses to open SEC play, these guys have rattled off three consecutive victories with back-to-back Quad 1 wins to start putting together some semblance of a resume. Bubble talk can rest with two very winnable home games ahead for a shot at five in a row.

“I think you have to earn confidence. You don’t just get it, right? You have to earn it,” Pope said after the rivalry win. “You gotta go do the gritty, hard, miserable work of earning confidence. And you have to take the heat and take the hate.”

Another quick double-digit deficit (and comeback)

Well, that’s the story of the day — and for this team overall, honestly.

It’s hard to call Kentucky’s start a slow one, considering the Wildcats had it within one nearly four minutes in and started shooting 6-11 from the field overall to keep it at six after eight minutes. Big-picture, though, it was yet another double-digit hole they dug themselves and had to climb out of, Tennessee using an 11-0 run to make it a 12-point game at 20-8, followed by a 7-0 run later in the half to push it to 16 at 36-20 before peaking at 17 at 41-24 with 3:25 to go before half.

Cutting it to 11 at the break made their lives easier, but certainly not easy in general. In fact, they are making their lives very, very difficult by doing this every time out, falling behind by double figures in eight of 11 games against high-major competition and four of five in the SEC. They’ve won four of those eight: St. John’s, Mississippi State, LSU and Tennessee.

Pope doesn’t like the Cardiac Cats nickname quite yet, but the way he talked about this team’s resolve afterward was fascinating. He doesn’t panic about early deficits the way most do and he probably should, because he sees the way they spit in the face of adversity to overcome anything. And they’re only growing.

“It gives you so much confidence as a group because you can walk in the locker room and nobody’s sideways,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Yep, this is what we do. We’ll come out and win the second half.’ These guys have proved to do it, man.”

They’re comfortable being uncomfortable — a territory you have no choice but to live in once postseason play rolls around. Would you rather see 30-point wins? Yeah, probably. Do you learn from those performances the way you do facing what these Wildcats have faced this week? Absolutely not.

Jasper Johnson gets his first high-major double-figure performance

Denzel Aberdeen earned two quick fouls to open the game, forcing Pope to play through Jasper Johnson for nine straight minutes as the lead guard. Maybe it was the opportunity, maybe it was his Tennessee hatred coming through as a Lexington kid, but it brought the best out of the five-star freshman.

He checked in and immediately drilled a 3-pointer, followed by another and a crafty layup not long after to cut it to six at the 11:55 mark. After a breather, he hit two more jumpers to bring his total to 12 points in the first half while adding a rebound and an assist in 13 minutes.

Johnson wouldn’t score again in the second half (nor would he take another shot), but he did add three assists for four total, good for most on the team. He’s scored more (22 points vs. NC Central), but hasn’t touched this level of impact against serious competition all year — certainly not in a win.

“He’s coming, man, he’s coming. Like, he’s on his way,” Pope said. “I thought he was terrific. He actually gave us a massive lift when we were stuck. I thought he was absolutely terrific.”

Denzel Aberdeen took the game over in the second half

If Johnson was the story of the first half to keep the Wildcats from drowning, Denzel Aberdeen was the story of the second to actually pull it off. I mean, what an absolute masterclass by the Florida transfer — seemingly the norm for him as of late.

He had four points without a single field goal in the first half. In the second? 18 points on 7-10 shooting and 3-5 from three with two steals and an assist, playing all 20 minutes. He scored the first seven to cut it to eight, then continued to be the haymaker thrown back to all of Tennessee’s responses, twice cutting it to four and twice to three. His biggest bucket came with UK up one coming off a missed free throw, taking on two defenders in the lane for a tough left-handed finish to go up three with 16 seconds to go.

“I thought D.A. was unbelievable,” Pope said. “… D.A. just caused problems. … I don’t know if there’s anybody playing better than him over the last game and a half.”

How about the last three? He’s now averaging 18.3 points per contest on 61/58/93 shooting splits after taking over as Kentucky’s permanent starting point guard with Jaland Lowe out for the year.

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He took a ton of (deserved) heat for his play early, but to his credit, he’s shut all of it up by playing truly elite basketball when the team has needed him most. That’s why he’s KSR’s PARLOUR Pizza Player of the Game — who else could it be?

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Mo Dioubate leads a second-chance charge on the glass

Tennessee entered the day ranked No. 4 in the country on the offensive glass, pulling down 15.1 per contest. That trend continued with 16 against Kentucky to win the overall battle 36-29, holding the Wildcats below their season average of 38.6.

So why was disappointing effort a major talking point at the podium for the Volunteers afterward? Because after allowing just one offensive rebound to UK in the first half and 12 overall, they allowed 13 on the offensive glass alone after intermission, leading to 17 second-chance points compared to just five in that same stretch for the home team. That was a 19-7 advantage on follow-up opportunities for the blue and white overall.

Individually, Mo Dioubate is to thank for a lot of it, turning two points and two rebounds in the first half into eight and four — all offensive boards — in the second. He was criticized for shot selection and the ball sticking some coming off a bad string of games, but in some of Saturday’s biggest moments, he proved why you invest in physicality and toughness.

“Effort — or lack of. Doing your job,” Rick Barnes said of the reason Tennessee gave up so many consequential offensive rebounds to Kentucky. “… Everybody’s got a job to do.”

Dioubate did his in Knoxville.

Have the Wildcats broken through from deep?

Remember all of that talk from Pope about Kentucky’s shooting eventually figuring itself out because he’s never seen practice results not translate to game results? Here we are, the Wildcats turning in yet another strong effort from deep, finishing 11-24 on the day for a hit rate of 45.8 percent. Individually, it was Collin Chandler leading the way with four made 3-pointers (12 points, 4-6 3PT), followed by Aberdeen (3-6 3PT) and Johnson (2-3 3PT) with additional makes from Otega Oweh and Andrija Jelavic.

It wasn’t a one-off, either, as UK is now up to 42.5 percent from the perimeter since the start of SEC on 37-87 overall. This group went 8-11 in the second half at LSU for a 10-23 finish, 9-22 vs. Mississippi State and 7-18 vs. Missouri with that 4-19 mark at Alabama breaking up a longer streak to include a 16-30 finish vs. Bellarmine.

All in all, slowly but surely, the loose idea — or unrealistic dream, it often felt like — of this team being a competent shooting team is becoming a reality.

Otega Oweh sent his teammates a video of “Go Big Blue” chants inside Thompson-Boling Arena last year and said he wanted them to experience that for themselves. That’s exactly how things unfolded, again, in Knoxville — something the program has gotten plenty used to recently.

GBB
GBB
GBB

KENTUCKY LEADS BY THREE WITH 13 SECONDS TO GO pic.twitter.com/YNPt1jD8Ue
— Jack Pilgrim (@JackPilgrimKSR) January 17, 2026

Now, after starting 5-4 on the year in the non-conference and 9-6 including the start of the league schedule, the Wildcats have given themselves a chance to make things interesting back above .500 in the SEC (3-2). Remember all of those identity questions with this group, wondering what exactly they did well?

It’s safe to say the answer to that question is fight.