The Kentucky Wildcats are starting to make a habit out of gritty, physical wins-and last night’s victory over Tennessee was another notch in that belt. For the second time this season, Kentucky took down the Volunteers, and once again, it came down to two key ingredients: defense and toughness.
That second element-physicality-isn’t just a byproduct of SEC basketball. It’s become a point of emphasis for this Kentucky team, and the coaching staff is leaning all the way into it.
Earlier in the week, assistant coach Andrija Jelavic mentioned a drill involving boxing gloves. Now we’re learning about something even more intense: the “tunnel of doom.”
Yes, you read that right.
“At this point, we’ve kind of just started having fun with hitting each other in practice,” Malachi Moreno said after Saturday’s win. “We have a tunnel of doom.
You hit the pads, and then you literally run through a tunnel of guys with pads, and they’re just hitting you, smacking you, and you’ve got to accept it. That’s become fun.”
It might sound like something out of a football training camp, but it’s become part of the Wildcats’ identity. And it’s paying off.
Kentucky didn’t just survive Tennessee’s physicality-they matched it. That’s no small feat against one of the SEC’s most rugged teams.
This kind of edge is exactly what you want to see as the regular season winds down and the stakes ramp up. Kentucky is very much in the hunt for an SEC title, and with a few heavyweight matchups looming, they’ll need every ounce of that grit to navigate tough road environments and close out games.
The path to a top-four seed in Nashville-and a real shot at cutting down nets-runs through more nights like this. If the “tunnel of doom” is what it takes to get there, then so be it.
This team isn’t just playing tougher. They’re embracing the fight.