KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Everything that’s troubled the Kentucky men’s basketball team this season — an inability to win on the road, the failure to overcome a double-digit deficit, the incapability of pulling out a close win — all came to one sweet resolution for the Cats on Sunday in the regular-season finale in Knoxville, Tenn.UK notched its second straight close victory Sunday, a 64-58 win over Tennessee on Senior Day at Thompson-Boling Arena, coming up with clutch plays down the stretch to clinch the Eastern Division’s No. 2 seed in the Southeastern Conference Tournament next week. The win awarded Kentucky a first-round bye and a matchup with the winner of the Ole Miss-South Carolina game on Friday at 3:30 p.m. ET”We grew up today,” head coach John Calipari said. “It’s the first game this year that we played the way we started and we changed it. North Carolina, we did it, couldn’t change it. Georgia on the road, we did it, couldn’t change it. Mississippi on the road, we did it, couldn’t change it. Arkansas on the road, we did it, couldn’t change it. “Here, we changed it.”Kentucky overcame one of its ugliest halves of the season to secure an all-important bye in the SEC Tournament and win its second SEC road game of the season. Freshman guard Brandon Knight scored 17 of his 19 points in the second half to lead the charge.”I was finally able to knock down some open shots,” said Knight, who started the game 0 for 5. “I just wanted to come out and compete. (DeAndre Liggins) did a good job of lifting us up and providing us with a spark (in the first half). I think that just transferred to all of us.” Nursing a one-point lead with 2:53 left in the game, junior guard/forward Darius Miller extinguished some more demons from earlier in the season when he knocked down a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from the left wing. Minutes earlier, Miller beat his man off the dribble with a hop into the lane and a bank shot off the glass.Miller’s ability to lift himself up after what Calipari called a “pitiful, soft” first half was part of a greater, team-wide evolution that’s been missing until the last two weeks.”Our thing is the game was rough,” Calipari said. “We played awful to start the game. I shouldn’t say that – Tennessee played really aggressive and really with high energy and really came after us. We just had to hold the fort down, and we did.”It was that “will to win” that Calipari talks about so much that was on full display in the closing minutes. In addition to five free throws by freshmen Terrence Jones and Knight, UK also came up with the possession on a loose-ball scrum with barely a minute to go. Senior forward Josh Harrellson, who “didn’t do anything” until the final three minutes, according to Calipari, kept a rebound alive on a missed 3 from Knight. After Harrellson tipped it off the backboard, Jones dove to the floor, wrestled the ball free from a pair of Tennessee hands and rolled it out to Knight.The Volunteers fouled Knight, and he all but iced the game with a pair of free throws to put UK up 61-56 with 1:02 left in the game.  “I think we came up with all the 50-50 balls the last four minutes,” Jones said. How Kentucky was even in the game at that point, much less after the first half, was actually quite remarkable. Pick a number — they were just about all ugly before halftime. UK shot a season-low 28.6 percent in the first half; Knight and Jones combined to go 2 of 15 from the field with four turnovers; Harrellson had zero shot attempts and zero rebounds; and to boot, Kentucky had used all but one of its timeouts.It all resulted in a 29-22 halftime deficit for the Cats, their lowest first-half scoring output since scoring 22 at Florida in 2009. “DeAndre was the only guy that showed up in the first half,” Calipari said of Liggins, who had six first-half points and limited Tennessee leading scorer Scotty Hopson to 2-of-10 shooting before fouling out in the second half.Disaster, by Kentucky standards, was certainly looming.  A lethargic UK team was on the verge of getting blown out and was staring down at the SEC’s No. 3 seed and a first-round SEC Tournament date on Thursday at 10 p.m. Talk about your potential postseason deflator.Kentucky was so listless after the first few minutes of the game that Calipari didn’t even want anything to do with his team. Instead of joining his club in the first media timeout, Calipari waved his hands in disgust and turned his back as the Cats huddled.That was Cal’s good side compared to his halftime demeanor.”I wasn’t friendly, let me say that.” Calipari said of his locker-room speech. “It was nothing to do with execution, just competitive spirit. I went right down the room.”Evidently, the players bought it as Kentucky emerged from the locker room on an 18-4 run. Knight scored nine of those points and seemed to gain confidence from his last-second shot to end the first half, which was his first field goal of the game.”Just to see it go in the net (helped),” Knight said.The Cats, after trailing by as many as 10 points in the first half, took their first lead of the game on a 3-pointer from Doron Lamb at the 17-minute mark. UK led by as many as seven and even relinquished the lead momentarily with 5:56 to go, but for the second time in as many games, Kentucky showed some guts and closed out a tough game. “In the first half we played a little nervous, wasn’t playing aggressive, looking up at the score like coach doesn’t want us to,” said Jones, who finished with 15 points, 11 after halftime. “In the second half we came out with a whole different swagger about ourselves. We played aggressive. Everyone was going for the rebounds, attacking hard, snatching the ball from the players if it was close to being a 50-50 ball. We really just went out in the second half together and said we were going to win this game.”The victory was way too late for the SEC crown, but it was good enough for the East’s second seed, a first-round bye in the SEC Tournament — an important achievement — and enough to improve its stock heading into postseason.”I think what this did is it moved our seed,” Calipari said. “In the last three games, it showed what we are. We, at our best, are pretty good.”