The Official #19 Tennessee @ #18 Arkansas Game Thread, 3:00 PM ET, ESPN2

#1
YankeeVol

YankeeVol

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#1
#19 Tennessee Volunteers: 10-3 (0-0 SEC)

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vs.

#18 Arkansas Razorbacks: 10-3 (0-0 SEC)

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GAME 14| TENNESSEE at ARKANSAS - Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026 | 3 p.m. ET | Fayetteville, Ark. | Bud Walton Arena (19,200)

Line: UT +2.5
O/U: 158.5

TV: ESPN2 / Watch
Radio: Vol Network / Listen / Live Stats
Satellite Radio: SiriusXM 81 / Internet: SXM App
Online: WatchESPN.com

Arkansas Game Notes

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#2
#2
THE MATCHUP
• Tennessee is 8-2 in its last 10 meetings with Arkansas, dating back to 3/10/18, after dropping the prior six matchups. The Vols are on a four-game series winning streak for the second time ever.
• UT's last visit to Arkansas was the biggest victory in series history, a 29-point win, 92-63, on 2/14/24. The Vols have taken the last three games by an average of 23.7 ppg.
• This is the second year in a row the sides open SEC play with a top-25 clash against each other.
• This is the fourth top-25 matchup between the two sides in the last six meetings (UT is 2-1) after there were zero prior such instances.
• The Vols have faced John Calipari 39 prior times, 17 more than any other active head coach (Rick Pitino, 22). It went 3-3 versus Calipari while at Memphis and 13- 19 during his Kentucky tenure.
• After going 22-14 (8-10) and reaching the Sweet 16 last year, the Razorbacks placed fifth in the 2025-26 SEC preseason poll.
• Freshman guard Darius Acuff Jr., paces Arkansas with 18.8 ppg and 6.2 apg.
 
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#3
#3
NEWS & NOTES
• Tennessee freshman Amari Evans and Arkansas freshman Meleek Thomas are Pittsburgh natives who both played for City Reapers at Overtime Elite (Ga.) last year.
• With 846 wins, Rick Barnes leads all active DI coaches and is ninth all-time (min. 10 years in DI), while John Calipari is one behind him with 845 victories. They are 13-13 against each other in head-to-head matchups, including 11-11 in the regular season.
• Barnes owns 112 wins in SEC play, second to Calipari among active coaches, and tied with Hank Crisp for No. 18 all-time.
• This will be Rick Barnes' 1,273rd game as a head coach, tying him with Bob Knight for No. 10 on the all-time list (min. 10 years in DI).
• Tennessee is 6-4 in SEC openers under Rick Barnes, including 3-3 on the road. UT has won its league opener in each of the last three years. Additionally, the Vols are 5-5 in conference road openers in the Barnes era.
• The Volunteers have double-digit victories before SEC play for the fourth straight season.
• The Volunteers are coming off a 105-54 win over South Carolina State for a school record 44th straight non-conference home win. The 105 points marked their second-most under Rick Barnes, trailing just the 106 they scored versus Arkansas on 1/15/19. The 51-point victory was UT's third-largest in Barnes' tenure and the sixth-biggest for the program in the shot-clock era (1985-2026).
• Ja'Kobi Gillespie has 1,496 points in 106 career games. He is just four points shy of 1,500.
• Tennessee, Alabama and Houston are the only schools to make the last three Sweet 16s. Tennessee, Alabama and Duke are the only three in the last two Elite Eights.
• UT finished a program-best fifth in the AP Poll, Coaches Poll and KenPom in 2023-24 and 2024-25.
• The Vols' 211 wins the last nine years (2017-26) rank co-seventh in DI, alongside Auburn (211). Only Houston (255), Gonzaga (253), Duke (232), Kansas (222), Purdue (218) and Saint Mary's (213) own more. Liberty (208) and Arizona (207) round out the top 10.
 
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#4
#4
BEASTS ON THE BOARDS
• Tennessee leads the nation, per KenPom, with a 46.1 offensive rebounding percentage. That is 1.4 percent better than second-place Florida (44.7).
• The Volunteers have logged double-digit offensive rebounds in all 13 games, with 15-plus in eight, 18- plus in four and 20-plus thrice. Their top tally is 23.
• UT is second in Division I in rebounding margin (15.0) and ninth in total rebounds per game (43.85).
• The Vols have grabbed at least 35 total boards in 12 of 13 contests, with 43-plus in eight, 47-plus in six and 50-plus in four. Their highest mark is 54.
• Jaylen Carey (four times), J.P. Estrella (three), Nate Ament (one), DeWayne Brown II (one) and Felix Okpara (one) have all amassed 10 total rebounds in a game this season.
• Per KenPom, Jaylen Carey is third in the country with his 21.7 offensive rebounding percentage.
• In his second start, versus Gardner-Webb (12/21/25), DeWayne Brown II had 14 rebounds. He tied Grant Williams (3/1/17), Jarnell Stokes (3/3/12) and Brian Williams (12/15/07) for the most by a UT freshman in the last 20 seasons (2006-26). He also tied the fifth-highest total by any Vol in the Rick Barnes era.
 
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#5
#5
DISHING OUT DIMES
• In each of Tennessee's first three games of the season—wins over Mercer (11/3/25), Northern Kentucky (11/8/25) and North Florida (11/12/25)— two different players had five-plus assists. The Volunteers had that happen just four total times during the 2024-25 season.
• The first four instances were recorded by four different players. Ja'Kobi Gillespie (six) and Ethan Burg (five) did it against Mercer, while it was Nate Ament (five) and Troy Henderson (five) versus Northern Kentucky. Gillespie (seven) and Ament (five) achieved the feat against North Florida.
• In 2024-25, only three different Volunteers had fiveplus assists in a game at any point in the year.
• Against Northern Kentucky, Troy Henderson became the first UT freshman with five-plus assists and zero turnovers in a game since Kennedy Chandler (seven) on 3/13/22 in the SEC Tournament title game win over Texas A&M in Tampa, Fla.
• After notching 19 assists in the opener versus Mercer (11/3/25), Tennessee had 24 assists against Northern Kentucky (11/8/25), its most since 11/13/24 versus Montana (24). The Volunteers eclipsed that number with 26 against North Florida (11/12/25), their top tally since 2/17/24 against Vanderbilt (28). UT then posted 23 versus Rice (11/20/25), giving the team three straight games at 23-plus, and followed that with 20 against Tennessee State (11/20/25) for a fourth consecutive game at 20-plus.
• Bishop Boswell had five assists versus Rutgers (11/24/25) in Las Vegas, becoming the fifth different Vol to hit that mark in the first six games. Tennessee finished with 18 assists in the win, its sixth straight contest with at least that many to open the year.
• Tennessee had 30 assists on 39 made field goals against South Carolina State (12/30/25). It marked UT's largest total under Rick Barnes, its top count versus a Division I foe since 11/17/2009 (34 against UNC Asheville) and the co-fourth-most in any game in program history.
• In that victory over the Bulldogs to cap 2025, three Volunteers had six-plus assists. Ja'Kobi Gillespie logged eight, while Bishop Boswell and Troy Henderson each had six to set career highs. It marked the first time in the last 20 seasons (2006- 26) three UT players had at least a half-dozen assists in the same game.
• Through 13 games, Tennessee has registered 18-plus assists nine times, with at least 20 in six of them.
 
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#8
#8
Volfan2012 said:
AI says we lose 81 to 78. Coming down to the wire today hopefully our inside game is strong today and we get a big win on the road.
Click to expand...
Did you ask a large language model? If so, it didn’t calculate “this is the most likely result”, but rather “these are accurate next words”. It’s a plausible end to the sentence but not a prediction based on any data about the teams.
 
#12
#12
Seems like an even match, but I don't know anything about Arkansas basketball. I know it's always tough on the road. I expect a good game.
 
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#13
#13
We’d be the favorite neutral or at home.

Home court advantage ranges being worth 3-4 points and Bud Walton Arena certainly is on the higher end of the scale.
 
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#19
#19
key for fts imo is somebody gets there early and knocks them down a couple times. Everybody sees the ball go in. Miss early and it’s contagious. You go from not thinking about it to “gotta have these” and it’s not a good mindset.
 
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