Highland School (Va.) five-star Nate Ament was in Knoxville on Tuesday night. The 6-foot-9, 185-pound forward, a longtime Duke basketball offer holder who now ranks No. 4 overall on the 247Sports 2025 Composite, watched the visiting No. 12-ranked Kentucky Wildcats defeat the No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers, 78-73.

With Duke and UNC trending in opposite directions, you had questions before the first meeting of the rivals this season on Saturday.

If you drew up the seed list for the NCAA Tournament, the Tar Heels might be an 11. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had North Carolina down as an 11-seed on Tuesday morning — hours before the Tar Heels lost at Pitt, 73-65.

Contrast that success with Calipari’s first Arkansas team, which needed six tries to notch its first SEC win of the year, and Kentucky fans figure to have plenty of ammunition Saturday. The Razorbacks are just 12-8 overall, and their 1-6 start to SEC play has them looking like a long shot for an NCAA Tournament berth.

Kentucky played only one game last week, a loss at Vanderbilt. Here’s how badly that hurt the Wildcats in the rankings with a trip to Tennessee up next.

Five things you need to know from No. 12 Kentucky’s gut-check 78-73 win at No. 8 Tennessee in SEC men’s basketball: 1. Mark Pope, slayer of rivals. There is a school of thought that one of a college head coach’s primary jobs is beating the teams his/her fan base dislike the most.

Pope took over after John Calipari left for Arkansas in a stunning turn of events. However, Pope wasted no time winning over the fanbase, especially since he is a former Kencutky basketball player. Moreover, moves such as this one only helped Pope's case more, and fans were excited to see the fan interaction with the Wildcats coach.

Mark Pope left BYU 10 months ago to return to his alma mater Kentucky, where he plied his craft at the direction of legendary coach Rick Pitino. Now, as head coach roaming the sidelines of Rupp Arena, that leap of faith is paying off big time.

For Kentucky, the game before The Game was a tough one on paper — a Tuesday night road contest against Rick Barnes' Tennessee Vols, who were ranked No. 1 in the country just a few weeks ago and listed as 10.

Unlike Lamont Butler, Andrew Carr was unable to take the floor against the Commodores on Saturday afternoon. A back injury prevented the fifth year senior from practicing for multiple weeks, and on Saturday, Pope made the decision to keep him out for the game.

Duke freshman phenom Cooper Flagg turned in another monster performance Monday night as the No. 2 Blue Devils edged NC State 74-64 after facing their first halftime deficit in a home game this season.