They’re not mutually exclusive. UK was god awful and as bad as we shot we still outshot y’all. The saving grace for UK’s putrid shooting was points at the line. UT wasn’t afforded that luxury.
Vols were there own worst enemy missing lay ups and rebounding poorly, but never discount the fact the SEC wants 6 or 7 teams in the ncaa and just like with Alabama football, they want the Kentucky basketball to be there.
I mean refs weren't great. I've seen them much worse when playing kentucky though. Looks like vols were just too tight to hit gimmes from three and layups.
Without the exaggerations the free throw were still the obvious difference. Look it up for yourself it would be much easier than going through the replay and finding out exactly how many missed layups we had.
It's such a loser mentality. Like I guess if the officiating is not 100% even or in our favor then you can go ahead and say "We would have won if not for that". It's like elementary school playground level crap.
Also it's no secret that college basketball officiating has been bad for like 50 years; so you either deal with it or go suck your thumb in the corner.