Tennessee went into tonight’s game with an opportunity to jump into sole possession of second place in the SEC standings. What stood in their way? A Vanderbilt team coming off of their biggest win of the season against Texas A&M. How would the Volunteers fair against their in-state rivals? Well, from the first possession, Tennessee absolutely dominated this game. Led by wildly efficient days from Zakai Zeigler, Josiah Jordan-James and Santiago Vescovi, Tennessee handled Vanderbilt 88-53, and to be honest with you, it didn’t feel that close. Pending the result of the Kentucky-Auburn game, Tennessee will move into second place in the conference, one game behind Alabama.
In addition to stellar performances from the guards listed above, Tennessee also got 14 points, and five assists from Dalton Knecht and 11 points and eight rebounds from Jonas Aidoo. Both players shot over 50 percent from the field.
The two biggest takeaways from this game though was Tennessee’s ability to score off of turnovers, and make shots from three. The Volunteers turned Vanderbilt’s 19 turnovers into over 30 points and made a season-high 14 three point shots, shooting over 45 percent from deep.
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Tennessee opened up the game on a 20-7 run, hitting their first five shots, and the lead was never once threatened by the Commodores. With three minutes to go in the first half, Tennessee was up 40-14. Yes, you read that correctly. 40-14. The Vols went into halftime up 51-20.
The second half, well, the second half technically needed to be played, but it was all but over at the first media timeout. In fact, if Tennessee didn’t score for the last 19 minutes and 44 seconds of this game, they still would have won by one point. All that said, the best part about the second half was that we got to see a big minutes for multiple freshmen. Cam Carr hit a couple of threes, Freddie Dilione played really hard and had a nice dunk in transition, Cade Phillips grabbed a couple of rebounds and had multiple assists. It was fun to watch. Tennessee’s final shooting splits were 47.8/45.2/72.7.
For Vanderbilt tonight, they were led in scoring by Ven-Allen Lubin, who accounted for nearly 20 percent of Vanderbilt’s points. He was the Commodores only player to score in double figures (10 points). Vanderbilt’s final shooting splits were 33/28/50….zoinks.
Tobe Awaka also had himself a nice performance in limited minutes, scoring nine points including a couple of tough finishes in transition. The only negative from this game is that Jahmai Mashack and Jordan Gainey struggled from the field, combining to shoot 1/12. If there was a game to struggle in though, you have to think this would be the one to do it.
Up next for the Volunteers, a Tuesday-night showdown in Columbia against the Missouri Tigers.
If you couldn’t catch tonight’s game, I feel bad for you. But don’t worry, you can find the full box score here.