Tennessee vs. Kentucky preview

Tomorrow night Kentucky will once again take on border state rival Tenneessee. Growing up, there was very few colors that you learned to hate as young as that nasty orange of UT. These two teams have had some memorable battles in their long history, tomorrow night will be no different. 

Tenneessee 0-2 in the SEC and Kentucky is 1-1 barley surviving a road game against a pitiful Vanderbilit team. Needless to say, both teams need wins, and they need them now. For Kentucky to assure themselves an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, they most certainly cannot have another slip up at home, especially to a team like Tenneesse. The Vols on the other hand, needs all the wins they can get and then some. Even then, they will have to make a deep run in the SEC tourney to secure an NCAA bid. 

This is very unfamiliar territory for Cat fans, especially since the arrival of John Calipari. Today when I listened in on the coaches teleconference, the common theme for Cal was the team "buying in". He said the whole team has yet to "buy in completely", that they don't trust each other enough to go and make plays. This afternoon, Willie Cauley-Stein echoed his coaches thoughts when he was asked about the team "buying in" saying "It's always been an issue. We just haven't changed yet. That's the big emphasis. We are a little late on the change. He [Calipari] says he has been doing this for a long time and sees it all the time". Willie went on to say " I think we have [been buying in], but it's been a slow process  we are not all the way there, that's why you get those mistakes in the last four minutes of the game where you can't close it out. We aren't all the way there yet". When asked if there's a sense of urgency now, Cauley-Stein said "There should be. We'll find out today. I felt like guys were focused in the film session. There should definitely be more sense of urgency". 

Let's just hope they "get all the way there" by tomorrow before Tennesse invades Rupp. If there was ever a time for a sense of urgency, that time is now.