KNOXVILLE — More than five weeks have passed since Jodie Meeks turned Thompson-Boling Arena into Studio 54.

Today he’ll be on his home floor when Tennessee’s Volunteers face him again. They must contain Kentucky’s sensational junior guard in Rupp Arena to stay tied atop the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division standings.

UT (16-9, 7-4) and Kentucky (18-8, 7-4) remain deadlocked with Florida and South Carolina for first place despite midweek road losses.

“No matter what, no matter what, no matter what ... there are five games left, and Tennessee is in a championship race,” Vols coach Bruce Pearl said. “It’s where we want to be. It’s why we do everything that we do for as long as we’ve been doing it.

“We are in the middle of it in this race, and that’s where we want to be.”

His Vols want to stay in front of Meeks today. The Wildcats’ newest star was magical on Jan. 13, scoring a Kentucky and Thompson-Boling-record 54 points against UT. He was 15-for-22 from the field, 10-for-15 from the 3-point line and 18-for-20 on free throws.

“You have to adjust when a player is making plays, and we never adjusted, so he just kept on scoring,” UT junior forward Tyler Smith said. “That was tough. I don’t think we’ll ever forget that.

“Fifty-four? Man, that’s a lot. That’s a big problem.”

Meeks — a 6-foot-4, Atlanta-area native — has been consistently brilliant this season, scoring in double digits in every game. He scored 20 points in nine consecutive games, and he’s hit 37 or more on five occasions.

Nothing topped his 54 in Knoxville, though. Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy called it “the performance of the year in college basketball.”

Pearl said seven Vols guarded Meeks that night, “so we’ll probably all be motivated.”

Freshman guard and Kentucky native Scotty Hopson, one of those seven players, said he still sees highlights from that game on college basketball shows.

“It was embarrassing for him to score 54 on our home floor,” Hopson said. “You want to just let it go, but at the same time you have to motivate yourself to say it will never happen again.”

Sophomore center Brian Williams, who presumably wasn’t one of those seven players, credited Meeks for his performance but said it wouldn’t happen again.

“Fifty-four points in college? That’s unbelievable, especially doing it in here,” Williams said after Thursday night’s practice in Thompson-Boling. “Our focus is on him. It’s not personal, but he’s going to see different sets and different looks up there, and he’s going to have to work hard to get his buckets.”

Pearl was understandably coy when asked whether his team would throw new wrinkles at Meeks this afternoon.

UT assistant Steve Forbes, who worked for UK coach Billy Gillispie at Texas A&M and turned down a spot in Lexington two years ago, has seen several Meeks-centered strategies in video study the past few weeks.

Some didn’t work, obviously, judging by the statistics. Meeks scored 31 and 46 against Auburn and Arkansas in league play.

“We’ve still got to do things that we’re capable of doing, based on our personnel,” Pearl said. “But obviously, (Knoxville) was Jodie Meeks’ first breakout game, and so then from that time forward, he got a little different amount of attention.”

Wildcats star sophomore center Patrick Patterson is expected to test his sprained ankle today after missing the team’s Tuesday night loss at Vanderbilt, but make no mistake, Meeks is the main priority.

“We did a great job on the inside (against Patterson in Knoxville) and not a very good job on the perimeter, but that’s been consistent with us,” Pearl said. “We’ve been a much better interior defensive team all year long. We’ve not gotten hurt by bigs. It’s when we go up against great guards that we struggle.”

Added Hopson: “Coach Pearl said when (Meeks) is contained, they lose, and when he goes off they win. That’s very true about their team, so we’re going to try to hold him to the least amount we can and hopefully come out there with a win.”