Kentucky pays a visit

KNOXVILLE — The Kentucky men’s basketball team hasn’t advanced further than Tennessee in the NCAA tournament since 2005.

UT is six games better than the Wildcats in Southeastern Conference play the past three-plus seasons.

The Volunteers (10-4, 1-0) are reigning conference champions, and they’re clinging to a No. 24 ranking in this week’s Associated Press poll. UK (12-4, 1-0) doesn’t have a single vote in either major poll.

Yet Vols coach Bruce Pearl steadfastly maintained Monday afternoon that Kentucky is “the benchmark.” In other words, Big Blue is still a big deal.

Pearl has split his first six meetings with the Wildcats, including two against coach Billy Gillispie.

“We are all compared based on our success or failure against the Wildcats,” said Pearl, who is 34-9 against the rest of the league.

Tonight’s winner will leave Thompson-Boling with a 2-0 SEC record and a key victory over an Eastern Division championship contender. And the Vols still have to play in Rupp Arena on Feb. 21.

“When you’re playing at home against one of the contenders, if we’re a contender ourselves, you really need to hold serve,” Pearl said. “Otherwise, you’ve got to make something up down the road down the stretch that you might not have anticipated having to do.”

Kentucky doesn’t have UT’s depth, but the Wildcats feature arguably the league’s best inside-outside tandem in sophomore forward Patrick Patterson and junior guard Jodie Meeks.

Meeks leads the SEC with 24.2 points per game, thanks largely to his .412 3-point shooting and .902 free-throw accuracy.

Patterson’s 18.9 scoring average is fourth in the SEC, and his 9.3 rebounds per game are third in the league. He leads the conference with an absurd .709 field-goal percentage.

Pearl called Meeks and Patterson “two of the best three or four players in our league.”

Vols star forward Tyler Smith, a third SEC player of the year candidate, said stopping the duo is “easy to talk about ... and not as easy to do.

“They don’t have a very deep bench, but they’ve got players who can really play,” Smith said. “Their two main guys are really good.”

Gillispie and his staff have failed to find a consistent third scorer, but junior forward Perry Stevenson has a knack for rising above his role-player status against the Vols.

Stevenson — the “Vol killer,” according to Pearl — averaged 13.5 points, 10.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocked shots against UT last season. He hovered around 5.7 points and 5.1 rebounds in the Wildcats’ other 29 games.

Junior forward Wayne Chism said Stevenson took UT by surprise in Rupp last season, but he didn’t try excusing Stevenson’s 13 points and 14 rebounds in Patterson’s injury-induced absence last March in Thompson-Boling.

“Stevenson can shoot the 15- or 17-footer now, and he’s a good offensive rebounder who can also block shots,” Chism said. “We can’t just focus on Patterson.”

Smith hasn’t forgotten Stevenson’s performances, either. Continual reminders from coaches, friends and even classmates have kept them fresh in his mind.

“That was last year, and we don’t live off of last year,” Smith said. “Last year was a great team, but this year is a totally different team.

“I’m a totally different player, too, so I don’t want to hear nothing else about Stevenson until tomorrow night.”

Tonight’s game also means plenty to UT freshman Scotty Hopson, a McDonald’s All-American guard who spurned the Wildcats to play for Pearl.

“This is why I came to Tennessee, to play against Kentucky in a game like this and hopefully get a victory,” Hopson said. “Of course it’s not going to feel the same. It’s going to be a big game. I’m geeked up.”