Kentucky vs. Tennessee prediction: Why Tennessee is favored to win men's college basketball matchup [1/17/2026]

Tennessee will square off with Kentucky in men's college basketball action at Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday, commencing at 12:00 PM ET.

Based on updated simulation results, Dimers' advanced college basketball model predicts Tennessee as the most likely winner of the Kentucky vs. Tennessee game.

This article offers an expanded analysis of Saturday's matchup, including an expanded look at the predicted score, best bets and picks.

Kentucky vs. Tennessee prediction: Who will win and cover?

Using trusted machine learning and data, we have simulated the outcome of Saturday's NCAA basketball game between Kentucky and Tennessee 10,000 times as part of our men's college basketball predictions coverage.

Our famous predictive model currently gives Tennessee a 78% chance of defeating Kentucky. Our predicted final score has Tennessee winning 79-70.

According to our model, Tennessee (-6.5) has a 57% chance of covering the spread, while the over/under total of 146.5 points has a 52% chance of going over.

Kentucky vs. Tennessee odds

We have researched the best men's college basketball odds in America for this game, which are listed here:

All odds are correct at the time of publication and are subject to change.

Kentucky vs. Tennessee picks and best bet

After matching our predictions against the best current odds, we can reveal our picks for each of the major markets. Plus, find our best bet for the game below: