Kentucky coach John Calipari would love to have Reid Travis hounding players at Tennessee on Saturday, but he suspects that won’t be the case.

Travis sprained his right knee in a victory over Missouri on Feb. 19 and hasn’t played since. His defense on SEC scoring leader Grant Williams played a large role in Kentucky’s 86-69 triumph over then-No. 1 Tennessee at Rupp Arena two weeks ago.

“... This will be a hard game whether he plays or not,” Calipari said.

No. 7 Tennessee doesn’t expect any less of a test in its rematch with No. 4 Kentucky just because the Wildcats likely won’t be playing at full strength. The Volunteers lost 82-80 in overtime last week to No. 13 LSU when Javonte Smart replaced the ailing Tremont Waters and scored a career-high 29 points.

“When you lose a player or you’re down a player, someone steps up,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “We saw that firsthand at LSU.”

Kentucky (24-4, 13-2), Tennessee (25-3, 13-2) and LSU (23-5, 13-2) are in a three-way tie for first place in the league standings. LSU has the tiebreaker advantage in regard to SEC tournament seeding because it went 2-0 against Kentucky and Tennessee.

“The good news for us is they have as much to lose as we do,” Calipari said of Saturday’s game. “It’s always nice every once in a while — maybe three times a year — to have a game like that, where the other team has as much to lose as you do.

“We play games where the other team has nothing to lose.”

OSU suspends Wesson: Ohio State suspended leading scorer Kaleb Wesson indefinitely for violating an athletic department policy the school didn’t specify.

Ohio State didn’t say when the 6-foot-9, 270-pound sophomore could return, only that he will play again this season.

Wessen is averaging 14.6 points per game for the Buckeyes (18-10, 8-9 Big Ten) and is their top rebounder with 6.7 per game average.