After an extended Christmas break, Tennessee returned to the court on Tuesday night and coasted past Norfolk State 87-50 at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center.
For their first game in 12 days, Tennessee played relatively sharp against the outmatched Spartans and turned in a start-to-finish strong performance.
Here’s three quick takeaways on the victory.
Tennessee Turns To Tobe Awaka Over Jonas Aidoo
On the game’s first possession, Jonas Aidoo missed a driving layup before grabbing his rebound and missing an easier put back. When he graded a rebound and threw it away less than a minute later, Rick Barnes went to his bench. It was a sign of things to come.
Aidoo struggled for the third straight game as Tennessee coasted past Norfolk State. The junior big man missed his first six shots and finished the night with just four points and five rebounds in 11 minutes.
With Aidoo struggling, Tennessee turned to JP Estrella and predominantly Tobe Awaka. Awaka did what he did best against the Spartans, grabbing eight first half rebounds on his way to 11 rebounds for the game. The sophomore big man also scored 10 points on four-of-six shooting from the field.
Strong Awaka performances have become more common the last few games out but it doesn’t completely take away from Aidoo’s recent struggles. The 6-foot-11 big man has a higher ceiling than Awaka and seemed to be turning the corner earlier this season when he was averaging 12.1 points and 7.5 rebounds through the first 10 games of the season.
Getting consistency from its big men has been an issue for Tennessee in recent years which made Aidoo’s early season strong play so encouraging. Tennessee finding consistency from both Aidoo and Awaka is a major storyline to watch ahead of SEC play.
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Dalton Knecht Gets Back On Track
Goal number one for Tennessee over the Christmas break was to get star wing Dalton Knecht back on track. After averaging 19 points per game over the first nine games of the season, Knecht totaled just 15 points in the three games prior to the break.
Knecht wasn’t at his most efficient scoring the basketball against Norfolk State, but the transfer wing was extremely effective on the night and did a number of things to like.
He scored 15 points and even though he shot just four-of-10 from the field and one-of-five from three-point range, he was a consistent scoring threat that made the Spartans’ defense fear him. He also got to the free throw line at a high clip, totaling six points from the charity stripe.
But when defenses collapsed on him, he was smart with the basketball and didn’t try and do too much himself. That was an issue for him in the previous three games but wasn’t on Tuesday night. He dished out four assists and had another of other smart passes. He also added four rebounds.
It wasn’t a perfect performance from Knecht but it was much more like the guy we saw the first nine games of the season rather than the last three. That’s a step into the right direction ahead of the start of SEC play.
A Complete Performance
In each of Tennessee’s last two home games against lesser opponents, they were unable to put a complete 40 minutes together. And coming off a 12-day break, there was plenty of reason to think that may happen again.
Tennessee jumped out to a 16-5 lead and then went ice cold as Norfolk State cut the lead to 20-16 at one point. But from there it was all Tennessee.
The Vols all but put the game away with an extended 23-2 and an 18-0 run to end the first half. Tennessee had another stretch of cold shooting in the second half but were consistent throughout the game winning the two halves, 43-18 and 44-32. That included the Vols sprinkling in reserves playing time throughout the second half and playing them almost exclusively in the final five minutes.
But it wasn’t just the 40-minutes of play that made Tennessee’s performance complete.
The Vols turned the ball over only 11 times including just two turnovers from its backcourt trio of Zakai Zeigler, Santiago Vescovi and Knecht. Compare that to Norfolk State’s 22 turnovers and it was a massive difference in the game.
Tennessee unsurprisingly dominated the glass against the Spartans, out rebounding its foe 37-30 and 13-6 on the offensive end.
The Vols got strong contributions up-and-down the roster and especially from their key players with Zeigler, Vescovi, Knecht and Josiah-Jordan James totaling 49 points in the victory.
Final Stats
Up Next
Tennessee opens up SEC play on Saturday night when it hosts No. 22 Ole Miss at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. Tipoff is at 6 p.m. ET. The SEC Network is broadcasting the game.
