What was really said and really done doesn't really matter. All anybody needs to know is that Bolivar Central High's Willie Kemp spent the month of September in the middle of one of the more-heated recruiting battles this area has witnessed in a while.

John Calipari had one arm.

Bruce Pearl had the other.

What followed was a tug-of-war featuring the veteran University of Memphis coach trying to protect his turf and the new Tennessee coach trying to establish his. Neither was willing to concede their perceived point guard of the future. Neither backed down.

So it got ugly.

And personal.

But more than anything else, Kemp's recruitment and eventual signing with Memphis helped renew a rivalry among basketball programs that had cooled in the absence of games, and set the tone for tonight's showdown between the fourth-ranked Tigers (15-2) and UT (11-2).

"That one got where it didn't need to be," Calipari said. "With the big kid (Kemp's teammate Wayne Chism, who chose Tennessee over Memphis), that's how it's supposed to be handled. You get a kid. OK. We'll move on to another kid. That's what's supposed to happen. But it didn't happen in (Kemp's) case."

Two up-tempo teams with gaudy records, two coaches with strong personalities who don't seem to be buddies and a product of Memphis City Schools returning to his hometown as a visitor, but not before telling The Tennessean that "frat boys from LSU" don't really bother him because he's "more scared of a gang-banger in Memphis."

In a sentence, that's what will be on the table at FedExForum tonight when the Tigers and Vols tip off at 8. It's a rare mid-January non-conference game that Pearl would rather not play on this date, and Calipari would rather not play at all.

But in terms of storylines, there are plenty, which is why nothing less than a near-sellout crowd is expected, one that will presumably greet White Station High graduate and UT starter Dane Bradshaw -- he of the "gang-banger" quote -- in a manner only former Memphian-turned-Vol Tony Harris can truly understand.

"He doesn't even know what he's saying," said Memphis point guard Darius Washington. "He's just excited because he's playing the Memphis Tigers. ... But when the game gets started and the ball goes up, all that talking has got to stop."

Or as reserve Andre Allen put it, "We're going to come out and try to make it not close. ... We're not going to call the dogs off. We're going to keep them on."

Which, metaphorically speaking, is what Calipari implied happened in Kemp's recruitment, that the UT staff never backed off the heralded prospect even after he publicly committed to Memphis on Sept. 28. On Tuesday, Pearl cast it all as "competition," and disputed his counterpart's claim that the recruiting war went too far.

"Obviously, there was some great competition for a great player and a great kid," Pearl said. "We're disappointed we didn't get him, (but) I would just say it's just competition."

Either way, by multiple accounts, that's where things turned south. If there ever was a cordial relationship between staffs, it was gone then, and everybody knew it.

"The Vols and Tigers were finalists this fall for ... Willie Kemp, who chose Memphis after a flurry of back-and-forth negative recruiting," is what Gregg Doyel of Sportsline.com wrote in explaining why he chose Memphis-Tennessee as one of his 25 games you might want to keep an eye on. "Tennessee lost that battle, and Memphis fans will pile it on here."

Foreshadowing, at its finest.

Even more so now, thanks to Bradshaw.

"I know there are a lot of Tennessee fans out there thinking we're going to lose," said Tiger freshman Shawne Williams. "But that's OK. They've got trouble."