Tennessee and Kentucky will play for a third time during the 2024-25 basketball season.
The Vols advanced to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 with a, 67-58, win against No. 7 seed UCLA in the second round. Kentucky advanced to the Sweet 16 after defeating No. 6 seed Illinois, 84-75.
Following the Wildcats’ second-round win over Illinois, Kentucky graduate student guard Lamont Butler guaranteed a victory against Tennessee in the Sweet 16 matchup.
“We’re just battle-tested throughout this whole conference,” Butler said in a postgame press conference. “(The) conference was a beast. We had a lot of good teams that we played, but we stayed resilient, stayed together, and it showed today.
“Everybody was playing with love and passion for one another, and we can’t focus about anything but the next game. We just have a lot of love, and we’re going to win that game.”
Tipoff between No. 2 seed Tennessee (29-7) and No. 3 seed Kentucky (25-11) is scheduled for 7:39 p.m. EDT on Friday (TBS/truTV). The game will be contested at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Predicting winners for all Sweet 16 games
This article originally appeared on Vols Wire: Kentucky basketball player guarantees victory of Vols in Sweet 16
