RECAP: Tennessee makes light work of St. Peters with 83-49 win in Vols’ first game of the NCAA Tournament

An easy win coming out of the gates

Dalton Knecht, Zakai Zeigler and Jonas Aidoo carried the offensive load for Tennessee with a combined 49 points, and the Vols’ defense held Saint Peter’s to just 29 percent shooting from the field in UT’s round-of-64, 84-49 resounding win.

Tennessee’s offense jumped on a good defensive St. Peter’s team early and often, starting with a Dalton Knecht made 3 for the game’s first basket followed by three consecutive Jonas Aidoo dunks.

Aidoo scored 13 point of his 15 total points in the first seven minutes of the game as he started the game 5-5 from the field. He didn’t miss a shot until the 6:12 mark of the first half when he misfired on a mid-range jumper:

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10 of the Vols’ first 17 points came via Zakai Zeigler points or assists. By the 10:40 mark, UT had stretched out a 20-7 lead, which Aidoo added one point to by hitting one of two freebies on a shooting foul.

The Vols turned it over twice in less than a minute — from 11:08 – 10:15 — but Aidoo converted a St. Peter’s turnover into an and-1 layup to get the offense going again. Then an empty Peacocks’ possession led right into a 3-pointer from Knecht on the near-wing.

The defense was stout from the onset, as it took a 3-pointer to put Peacocks in double digits with 6.5-ish minutes left in the first half. With fewer than five minutes left in the half, Tennessee had held St. Peter’s to 21 percent shooting from the field and 3-13 from deep.

Prior to the under-four-minute media timeout, Zeigler hit Tobe Awaka with a slick bounce pass that Awaka finished with an easy layup at the rim. It was Ziegler’s sixth of Tennessee’s 10 overall helpers out of 13 made shots.

With 2:51 left until half, Awaka hit two free throws, which was a welcome sight as the team had made just two of its prior six tries and sat at 10-16 from the charity stripe.

Including the Awaka free throws, Tennessee closed out the final three-ish minutes of the half on an 11-3 run, which included Santiago Vescovi’s first made 3 out of nine tries in the Vols’ final three games of the season.

Knecht (13 on 5-8 shooting, 2-4 from 3, 1-1 on FTs) and Aidoo (13 on 5-6 shooting, 3-7 on FTs) finished the first half with 26 combined points and outscored the Peacocks 26-20 as Tennessee went into the second half with a 46-20 lead.

Zeigler hit the second half’s opening shot with his second FG of the game, both of which came on 3-point shots. At this point, he was 2-2 from the field and 2-2 from the free-throw line with six assists and two turnovers.

Zakai turned it over after two made St Peter’s free throws, but Josiah-Jordan James returned the favor with his own steal that led to a Knecht and-1 finish.

After Knecht’s old-fashioned three-point play and by the under-16 TV timeout, UT had extended its lead to 30 points at 58-28 with Vescovi and Knecht each hitting another shot from deep. Both shots were assisted — Aidoo found Santi who let it fly from deep on the near-side wing, and Zeigler got the ball to Knecht on the far-side wing for Zeigler’s seventh helper and Knecht’s third made 3.

With 11 or so minutes left, Tennessee led 65-34, and Barnes used the big lead to get freshman center JP Estrella some minutes. Estrella quickly notched a dunk off another Zeigler assist:

The Peacocks answered with a jumper on its end of the floor, but Jahmai Mashack followed that with a 3-pointer off an James offensive rebound and assist. The 3 was Mashack’s 14th of the season and kept him around the 38-percent mark for the year.

Awaka and Knecht missed two-straight, near-point blank attempts after St. Peter’s broke a nearly three-minute scoring drought with a mid-range jumper at the 9:22 mark. The Peacocks cut the lead to 68-35 with a layup following an Awaka foul, but Jordan Gainey responded with his first made 3 of the game on UT’s next possession.

Knecht hit another 3 with seven minutes left, then hit one of two free throws with 4:48 remaining in the game. In about a 15-second stretch, after Knecht’s free throw, Mashack missed two chances at an easy layup, Aidoo got a third offensive board on the possession and kicked it out to Vescovi who missed a 3.

St. Peter’s got the ball after getting the defensive rebound but got tied up and had the possession arrow. It missed a 3 and Zeigler hit Estrella with another alley-oop.

The Vols closed the game with Knecht, Zeigler, Mashack and Vescovi playing until around the three-minute mark, which was perhaps a bit puzzling considering the sizable lead that floated around 30 points for most of the second half.

Freddie Dilione, Cam Carr and Cade Phillips all ended up getting some run at various points near the end of the game. Dilione hit a nice layup, Phillips snagged a couple rebounds and showed some serious hops when he got his hand on more than one of St. Peter’s shots. They didn’t go down as blocks, but it was a dynamic I hadn’t seen from him this season.

All in all, Tennessee checked several of the boxes that are typically critical to wins: Three players scored in double figures — Knecht (23), Aidoo (15, plus six boards and three blocks) and Zeigler (11). Zeigler also dished out 10 assists to just two turnovers for his fourth double-double of the season, with the previous three all coming in SEC play.

UT won the rebounding battle 47-21 and collected 13 offensive boards to the Peacocks’ eight, and notched 19 assists to its 27 total made shots (70 percent — for context: the Vols finished the season 13th nationally in this stat at 61 percent. Barnes is likely displeased with the team’s 15 turnovers compared to generating just five from St. Peter’s, as multiple Vols had two giveaways: Knecht, Zeigler, Vescovi, James, Estrella and Gainey.

With the win, UT moves on to face the other UT in another Rick Barnes reunion with his former Texas Longhorns program. As a 7-seed, Texas beat the 10-seeded Colorado State Rams 56-44, a game in which the Rams scored just 11 points in the first half. Neither team lit the world on fire shooting-wise, with Texas hitting just 1-14 from deep but holding Colorado State to just 29 percent from the field overall.

The two UTs will play Saturday with the scheduled tip-off time yet to be officially decided.