By Nick Gray | Basketball beat writer

[email protected]

The University of Tennessee came into Rupp Arena on Saturday looking to bully a UK team that was among the nation’s best at rebounding the basketball.

And bully they did, over-matching the Cats’ frontcourt to the tune of the second-largest rebounding deficit of the season.

But the career-high effort of UK freshman guard Andrew Harrison and a productive offensive day by freshman forward Julius Randle helped UK brush aside the Volunteers’ strength and win 74-66 taken in by a crowd 24,246.

Tennessee’s two wide-bodied forwards – senior Jeronne Maymon and junior Jarnell Stokes – limited Cats sophomore forward Willie Cauley-Stein to zero points and three rebounds and dominated the rebounding margin, combining for 20 of the Volunteers’ 39 rebounds.

“(Tennessee) did an exceptional job of keeping (UK’s) guys off the glass because you are talking about one of the better rebounding teams in college basketball,” Volunteers head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “That was a focus for us, to keep them out of the lane.”

Harrison finished with a career-high 26 points, including a perfect 10-for-10 from the free throw line and 16 points in the second half.. His layup with 1:09 left in the game gave the Cats an eight-point cushion that the Volunteers did not recover.

“That’s who I expect,” Calipari said. “(Andrew Harrison) made the right play. He had no turnovers. He made big shots, and he ran our team. He played liked a point guard.”

Tennessee ripped out to a 6-0 lead, all on shots in the paint from Stokes. Stokes, Maymon and sguard Jordan McRae accounted for all of the Volunteers’ 22 points as Tennessee held what would be its largest lead of the game at 22-13, less than 10 minutes into the game.

The Cats began their ascent to the lead from there.

Harrison hit two 3-pointers along with a pair of free throws to get UK within five. Minutes later, Randle put together his own 7-0 run, including a driving layup with 1:31 left in the half to cut the lead to 32-31.

Freshman guard James Young hit a 3-pointer on the next possession, and UK carried its first lead of the day into the locker room though the Volunteers held the advantage in rebounding at 23-10.

“I thought Julius set the tone in the first half,” Martin said. “(Andrew Harrison) took over in the second.”

The Cats did not relinquish the lead in the second half, as freshman guards Aaron Harrison and Andrew Harrison feasted on the Volunteers inside. Tennessee stayed within five for the first eight minutes of the second half, cutting the lead to three after a McRae free throw.

UK went on a 11-4 run, the last nine points of which were scored by the Cats’ starting backcourt. Aaron Harrison’s layup with 7:20 left gave the Cats a 10-point advantage with 7:20 to play. UK scored 29 of its 40 second-half points from the free throw line and the paint as both guards used the screen-and-roll to isolate the Volunteers’ big men.

“We played great in the second half,” Andrew Harrison said of his team. “We tried to pick our spots and exploited where there were weak at, like the pick and roll.”

UK shot 23-of-24 from the free throw line, its best effort from the stripe of the season for a team who was tied for 281st in the country in free throw percentage before Saturday’s contest.

McRae finished with 17 points on 5-of-14 shooting for the Volunteers (11-6, 2-2 SEC), who will face the University of Arkansas on Wednesday in Knoxville.

Calipari, whose team next plays Texas A&M University on Tuesday at home, complimented the Cats’ opponent on Saturday while approving of his own team’s effort.

“I’m just happy to see them again until tournament time possibly, and I hope we don’t see them there.” Calipari said.

“(Tennessee) may have done a few things and we broke down a little bit, but we are moving the right way.”