Game day: No. 12 Kentucky 78, No. 8 Tennessee 73

Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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Kentucky didn’t need a point guard Tuesday night.

With Lamont Butler ruled out the night before with a shoulder injury and Kerr Kriisa still sidelined after foot surgery last month, the Wildcats went into a dangerous battle with  missing both of their veteran playmakers.

Against the Vols, they won without one.

No. 12 Kentucky led for most of the game and took the lead for good early in the second half to score a 78-73 victory over the Vols in Thompson-Boling Arena, a stunning result given the Cats’ injury troubles going into the game.

In addition to Butler and Kriisa being out, starting power forward Andrew Carr, who has been dealing with a back injury, played for just one brief sequence off the bench in the first half before coach Mark Pope removed him from the game for good.

the team’s de facto starting point guard, scored 17 and went 4-for-9 on 3-pointers for the Wildcats, who were 10.5-point underdogs by the opening tipoff. Koby Brea had 18 points — shooting 3-for-3 from 3-point range — and Ansley Almonor, starting in place of Carr for the second consecutive game, added 12 points, going 4-for-7 from long range.

Amari Williams, who also quarterbacked the UK offense, tallied a double-double with 10 points and 15 rebounds, and Otega Oweh scored 14 points, putting all five starters in double figures.

Tennessee led 33-30 at halftime, but Kentucky started the second half on an 11-2 run to pull back ahead, and the Cats never trailed over the final 19:17 of the game. UK outscored the Vols 20-9 over the first six minutes of the second half, and freshman forward Trent Noah hit a 3-pointer with 12:24 left in the game to give UK a 55-44 lead, its first double-digit advantage of the night. By that point, the Cats had outscored Tennessee 25-11 in the half.

Chaz Lanier cut UK’s lead to 74-73 on a 3-pointer with 28.6 seconds left — after three Tennessee offensive rebounds gave the Vols four shots, all 3-point attempts, to narrow the score — but Oweh hit two free throws to give the Cats a 76-73 lead, and then Jordan Gainey airballed a 3-pointer with less than 10 seconds left to turn possession over to Kentucky.

Oweh hit two more free throws after that to set the final score.

Kentucky improved to 15-5 on the season and 4-3 overall. The Cats are now 6-1 against teams ranked in the AP top 15 under Pope.

Tennessee (17-4, 4-4 SEC) came into the game with the No. 1 defense in the country, according to the KenPom efficiency ratings. No team had scored more than 76 points on the Vols over the first 20 games of the season.

the Wildcats got off to a hot start.

Robinson turned the ball over on Kentucky’s first possession, but Brea drained a 3-pointer on the Cats’ second trip, Robinson added two 3s of his own shortly after that, and then Almonor hit a long-range shot to give UK a 12-4 lead going into the first TV timeout of the game.

After Brea’s 3-pointer in the opening minute accounted for the first score of the night, the Wildcats never trailed until Lanier — the Vols’ leading scorer this season — hit a 3 for his first points of the game to give Tennessee a 33-30 lead with about 40 seconds left in the first half. Lanier missed his first four shot attempts, all of them from 3-point range.

With Lanier’s first make, the Vols ended the half on an 11-0 run. Kentucky held a 30-22 lead with three minutes to go until halftime before Gainey hit back-to-back 3-pointers to start the scoring run. Until then, Tennessee was 2-for-15 from long range.

Ten different Kentucky players saw the floor before the second TV timeout of the first half.

Carr came off the bench for the first time as a Wildcat after being sidelined completely for the team’s 74-69 loss at Vanderbilt on Saturday, but Pope removed Carr from the game after less than 90 seconds, and he didn’t return Tuesday night.

Kentucky’s next game will be the much-anticipated matchup with Arkansas, which is in its first season under John Calipari, who will make his return to Rupp Arena on Saturday night.

Calipari, of course, was the head coach of the Wildcats for 15 seasons, leading the program to the 2012 national championship and four Final Four appearances. He left Lexington for Fayetteville last offseason, but the Razorbacks are off to a tough start in his tenure. Arkansas has a 12-8 overall record and a 1-6 mark in SEC play, entering the week at 15th in the league standings and on track to miss the NCAA Tournament.

Former UK recruit Boogie Fland was one of the Hogs’ top players, but he suffered what is expected to be a season-ending injury earlier this month. Former Kentucky player Adou Thiero is leading Arkansas with 16.1 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game this season.

The Cats and the Hogs will play at 9 p.m. EST Saturday on ESPN.