Louisville at Tennessee preview

Louisville Cardinals (9-1) at Tennessee Volunteers (7-3)

Game Time: 7 p.m.

Location: Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center: Knoxville, Tenn.

Television: ESPN

Announcers: Karl Ravech (play-by-play) and Jimmy Dykes (analysis)

Favorite: Tennessee by 2.5

Series: Louisville leads, 12-9

Last Meeting: Tennessee won 77-55 on Nov. 9, 2024 in Louisville

Series History:

Projected Starting Lineups:

Louisville

• G Mikel Brown Jr. (6-5, 190, Fr.)
• G Isaac McKneely (6-4, 195, Sr.)
• G Ryan Conwell (6-4, 215, Sr.)
• F J’Vonne Hadley (6-7, 210, Sr.)
• C Sananda Fru (6-11, 245, Jr.)

Tennessee

• G Ja’Kobi Gillespie (6-1, 188, Sr.)
• G Bishop Boswell (6-4, 204, So.)
• F DeWayne Brown (6-8, 251, Fr.)
• F Nate Ament (6-10, 207, Fr.)
• F Felix Okpara (6-11, 243, Sr.)

Statistics:

Relevant Videos:

Tennessee’s Season to Date:

About Tennessee:

While still existing as one of the front-runners for the title of “best college basketball program to have never appeared in a Final Four,” Tennessee has established itself as one of the most consistently stellar programs in the country under head coach Rick Barnes. The Volunteers have been at least a 5-seed in every NCAA tournament since 2018, and have advanced to the tournament’s second weekend four times over that span.

While a reputation for March struggles has followed him as much as the program he now guides, only three active coaches in Division-I have more career wins attached to their name than Barnes. The former Clemson and Texas head coach resurrected a Tennessee program that had won just one SEC tournament since 1979 and just one regular-season title since 2008 when he arrived in 2015.

The not-so-secret success to Tennessee’s success under Barnes has been a prowess on the defensive end that has been unmatched in college hoops. Since 2021, the Volunteers have ranked fifth, third, first, third and third in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency. Three seasons ago, UT limited opponents to just 87.5 points per 100 possessions, the second-best mark of any team since the turn of the century.

Louisville felt firsthand the power of the Volunteers’ connected physicality 13 months ago. In the first spotlight game of the Pat Kelsey era, UT suffocated U of L on its way to a 77-55 blowout victory that Kelsey has repeatedly referred to as his first “eye opening moment” on the job.

Revenge will be difficult to come by for the Cardinals against a Tennessee team that has had 10 days to prepare for them, will be playing its first home game since Nov. 20, and is desperate to snap a three-game losing streak that has dropped it to No. 20 in the national rankings.

Gone from last season’s Elite Eight team is the bulk of the squad’s scoring. Star point guard Zakai Ziegler has finally graduated, super scorer Chaz Lanier is now a Detroit Piston, and third and fourth leading scorers Jordan Gainey and Igor Milicic have aged out of college hoops as well.

Barnes’ primary offseason goal was to find a lead guard to steer the ship in 2025-26. He got his man in Ja’Kobi Gillespie (17.3 ppg), a star at Belmont before transferring to Maryland where he led the Terps in scoring last season.

When Tennessee has been at its best this season, Gillespie has also been at his. He dropped 32 points in a Players Era Festival win over Rutgers, and then the next day led the team to an upset win over Houston by scoring 22 points and committing zero turnovers against the vaunted Cougar pressure defense.

Since then, however, Gillespie has had some struggles. He went just 5-of-19 from the field and 1-for-10 from three in the team’s loss to Kansas, scored just 10 points the next week against Syracuse, and then shot an atrocious 6-for-20 in UT’s lopsided loss to Illinois. Barnes said earlier this week that he and Gillespie had a heart-to-heart during the break about the need for the 6’1 Tennessee native to play more “like a true point guard” (a tough ask for the best pure scorer on the team). We’ll see if he displays a different mindset Tuesday night.

The team’s second-leading scorer is freshman star Nate Ament (16.3 ppg), a name Louisville fans should be extremely familiar with given how involved the program was during the 6’10 forward’s recruitment. When you think Tennessee basketball, you think big, bruising, defensive-minded forwards. That’s not at all who Ament is, which is what makes this fit so interesting.

Ament is a slender 207-pounds, and is definitely more comfortable playing “pretty” basketball than he is partaking in a classic Tennessee rock fight. His talent is undeniable, but he has had a bit of an uneven start to his freshman campaign, and there’s a pretty clear dividing line when it comes to his production.

In six games against teams ranked outside KenPom’s top 100, Ament is averaging 19 points, nearly eight rebounds and shooting 45% from the field. In four games vs. top-100 competition, however, Ament is shooting just 26% from the field and averaging 12 points per contest. Tennessee is just 1–3 in those games. Ament is a better three-point shooter than his 28.9 shooting percent would indicate, but the more concerning thing for Barnes has to be that Ament has converted on just 22 of 46 attempts at the rim so far this season.

Like I said, the kid is an undeniable talent who will be a top 10 pick in next summer’s NBA Draft. He’ll really get it going against quality competition at some point this season. Louisville just can’t let that point be Tuesday night.

UT’s only other double figure scorer is reserve 6’11 sophomore J.P. Estrella (11.0 ppg), who is coming off of a foot injury that ended his 2024-25 season immediately after the Louisville game. Estrella is the backup to starting center Felix Okpara (7.7 ppg/5.7 rpg). Both are extremely large, physical presences, but Okpara is the much better defender (1.7 blocks per game), while Estrella is slightly more skilled on offense. Both are exactly what you think of when you think “Tennessee bigs.”

With veteran forward Cade Phillips now done for the season because of a shoulder injury, Barnes has said he will give freshman Dewayne Brown II his first career start. Brown is 6’8, 251-pounds and also plays with the level of physicality you’re used to seeing from the Tennessee frontcourt. He isn’t extremely skilled, but he is all energy all the time and will force Louisville’s forwards to match that.

Jaylen Carey is an exceptionally skilled transfer from Vanderbilt who Barnes seems to be trusting more as the season goes along. He almost single-handedly kept the Vols from being upset by Syracuse, but struggled against Illinois four days later. Both he and sophomore guard Bishop Boswell are kind of x-factors for this team. Boswell is a capable outside shooter that Louisville can’t afford to lose on the perimeter.

Of primary concern for U of L in this game is the fact that Tennessee is the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the country. The Volunteers are coming down with a whopping 45.3 percent of their own missed shots. For all the things Louisville did well against Memphis State, the Cards still surrendered too many second chance opportunities, something that also killed them in their loss to Arkansas.

Defensively, you know what Tennessee is going to do. Effectively attacking it is easier said than done. While the Vols haven’t quite as suffocating as usual so far this season, they still rank 13th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency and they still, without doubt, will be at least the second or third best defensive team the Cards will play this season.

In last year’s game, Tennessee was extremely successful at forcing Louisville to play at the face the Vols wanted. We’ll see how much Pat Kelsey implores Mikel Brown Jr. to keep that from being the case this g0-round. It’ll be a lot easier to do if the Cards are playing from ahead for most of the evening.

Notable:

—Louisville has won 12 of its last 15 games against Tennessee. The Volunteers won the first six meetings between the two programs, which were all played between 1913 and 1922.

—Tuesday night will be the first regular season game between these two programs where both teams will be nationally ranked.

—Louisville (third) and Tennessee (fifth) play in two of the five largest college basketball arenas in the country.

—Tennessee has won 41 consecutive non-conference home games, the second-longest streak in program history.

—Tennessee’s last home loss to a non-conference opponent was a 68-48 defeat at the hands of Wisconsin on Dec. 28, 2019.

—Louisville has a 267-85 record against non-conference opponents over the last 24 seasons (includes postseason).

—Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey is 0-1 in games against Tennessee.

—Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes is 2-0 in games against Louisville.

—Tennessee is looking to avoid its first four-game losing streak since the final four games of the 2015-16 regular season. That was Rick Barnes’ first year as the Volunteers’ head coach.

—Over its 86-week streak in the AP Poll, since the start of the 2021- 22 season, UT has played just 19 games as a lower-ranked team. It is 11-8 in those matchups.

—Tennessee is 126-102 all-time versus the ACC current membership, beating all but one of them (Notre Dame, 0-1) at least once.

—Rick Barnes is 85-78 against current ACC members. He is 15-6 at UT, including 8-2 over the past five seasons (2021-26).

—Louisville has hit the 100-point mark four times in a season for the first time since 1989-90.

—Louisville is 0-1 in true road games so far this season.

—The Cards are 1-1 in games against teams from the SEC.

—Louisville is 99-90 all-time against current members of the SEC.

—Louisville is 36-0 under head coach Pat Kelsey when leading with five minutes to play.

—Rick Barnes is 102-26 in his career and 42-9 at Tennessee when coaching a home game immediately following a loss.

—Louisville is 14-0 over the past 10 seasons when limiting opponents to no more than one three-point field goal.

—Louisville is 120-0 all-time when scoring 100 or more points in non-overtime games.

—Louisville has won 167 consecutive games when holding an opponent under 50 points.

Ken Pomeroy Prediction: Tennessee 80, Louisville 79