No. 5 Tennessee (14-2, 4-0 SEC) hosting Kentucky (10-6, 1-3) inside Thompson-Boling Arena this afternoon.

Tip-off set for 12 p.m. ET on ESPN.

As usual, Vol Report is on site and has you covered! Game updates and discussion in this thread and on Twitter @TennesseeRivals and @ByNoahTaylor all day long!

Bama up 2 with 4:45 left and quickly up 15 with 1:21 left......on the road

Ark might be a bit down from what they thought they had but Bama will be a test worthy of making the Final 4-8

NO WAY we could have stood up to Michugan or Texas Christian.

Lots of turn overs. Can not hit

From @Noah-Taylor:

It's going to be a huge weekend for Tennessee, which is hosting a number of big-name recruits for its Junior Day on Rocky Top.

After an 11-win season, the #ols will be trying to land some top prospects.

@Tyler Bannerman has the loaded visitors list:

From @Noah-Taylor:

Tennessee beat Texas A&M on the road tonight:

Today's games for Mich and TCU really wouldn't matter with a 12-16 team playoff

90% of viewers wouldn't even be watching these two games finish if not for the 4 team playoff

And we all know there is only 2-4 teams max every year that truly deserve it and would win it all. There is never 8-12 teams worthy of playing for a title

This would be meaningless outside seeding in a 12 team playoff basically

Sure I'd like to see more football but that's the only reason to want a 12 team......it's not to make CFB better bc it won't mean as much for the top teams late in the year. They only drama would be who is 12th and 13th (which would be 2 totally undeserving teams)

Confirmed with the 2024 five-star ATH from Lilburn (Ga.) Parkview that he is visiting Tennessee this weekend.

From @Noah-Taylor:

From the standout career he put together to the love he has for the school, Chris Lofton means a lot to Tennessee.

That's why his No. 5 jersey is being retired on Saturday.

"I don't know of any era that doesn't love him because of the way he loves this place."

From @jacobpolacheck:

Need 2 tickets to UT vs Mo Feb 11th at a reasonable price

Hi Vol Report subscribers and staff,

Happy New Year! Hope you all are doing well! Ben Parker, publisher of Stanford Rivals (Cardinal Sports Report) here.

As I'm sure most of you know, Justin Williams-Thomas committed to Stanford out of the transfer portal and then flipped his commitment to Cal on Sunday. Players were under the impression that he was admitted to Stanford and Stanford even announced that he was coming aboard. So that initially made me think his decision to flip to Cal was something other than admissions. But then I was thinking what else could it be? Cal isn't great with NIL to my knowledge, Stanford could really use depth at running back and the path to becoming RB1 would totally be there for him in a couple of seasons. Plus their RB room is rather fragile. So, he'd likely have gotten a good deal of snaps in 2023. And then on top of that, Stanford is a better school.

Anyways, I feel like I've been thrown off the scent by Stanford announcing his addition and coming back to admissions being why he flipped to Cal. The excuse he's been hoping others buy is that the dorms at Stanford were bad, which doesn't fly. Their transfer dorms are really nice and recently got renovated!

Where you all could maybe help me and if you can't that's ok, is helping me understand what the timeline is for when grades get posted on Tennessee transcripts. What I saw online was that they get posted digitally within a few days after finals, so by December 21st, before he committed to Stanford on the 27th, he should have known his grades, right? Or is that only final exam grades? What I'm wondering is if Stanford would have had access to those grades or not. Or are grades not posted on transcripts until later?

I noticed that final grades get posted on transcripts for those completing their degrees on January 6th and that is one day before he withdrew from a Stanford team/class group chat. I know he's not completing a degree as he just finished his freshman fall semester. But what I'm thinking might have happened is Stanford admitted him conditionally after seeing his fall midterm grades and that if he finished strong he'd get admitted, but then the final grades came out in January and they realized that he had fallen short of what was needed. I also saw Tennessee announced the dean's list on January 5th. Williams-Thomas was in the 3.5-3.69 range. That would be borderline for Stanford. That date also lines up with him withdrawing from the team group chat.

Anyways, I've probably given you all too much information, but I think you all know what line of inquiry I'm after. If any of you know when his grades would have been made available to Stanford, that's really what I'm driving at. Thanks so much!

From @Noah-Taylor:

We had Chris Lofton on our Checkerboard Chatter show today. He and Tyler Ivens had a great conversation ahead of Chris’ jersey retirement this weekend.

No longer on Outkick. He get fired? He finally gone from Nashville Sports talk radio?

Gregory will visit Tennessee before his Jan. 27 commitment.

From @Tyler Bannerman:

With 12 min left 😲

Cal to Texas? Easy to say most Ky fans are over him, mostly one and dones and the excuses that come with that, and his goal to get guys to the NBA first and foremost vs what's best for KYs program/ history

From @Ryan Sylvia: