Tennessee veteran Josiah-Jordan James walked into Rupp Arena on Saturday afternoon with a 2-2 record against the Wildcats in Lexington.
The longtime Vol knew that Saturday’s contest would be his last in this particular building.
And when Tennessee needed it, James put on a career performance and helped the Vols cross the 100-point mark en route to a 103-92 win over the Wildcats. James scored 26 points against Kentucky on Saturday to set a new career high as his previous career high came earlier in the season against NC State in San Antonio.
Head coach Rick Barnes said after the game that James “got back to getting aggressive” in his scoring against the Wildcats. James went 9-of-18 from the floor and 4-of-9 from three-point range with five rebounds, one assist, and two steals to add in.
“But, am I surprised with Josiah? I mean, we’ve been through so much with those guys and I’m not surprised because of our older guys,” Barnes said. “Our experience I thought was really, really important tonight.”
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James’ scoring outburst against Kentucky is especially important because it breaks a scoring slump that he had been in during conference play. The Vols’ veteran only scored 21 total points through the first seven conference games including one scoreless game against Vanderbilt in Nashville last week.
With Dalton Knecht scoring more than 190 points in the same six-game stretch, Barnes challenged his team to provide more scoring options in-game based on the talent that was on the roster. While Knecht is Tennessee’s top scorer whenever he is on the court and has been playing lights out, the Vols got caught playing the “feed Knecht” game every once in a while when tough stretches occurred. Barnes challenged his team to take more accountability in practice and on the court from an offensive scoring perspective.
“But the last two days, we’ve had some really good work in practice,” Barnes said after the game. “And Josiah got back to getting aggressive. And what we told the guys is that we’re not going to sit around and watch Dalton (Knecht) do it. We’ve got too many good players. And I said we’re not going to do that. And I told those guys, simple, we want you to do what we do.”
The Vols answered the challenge with five double-digit scorers against the ‘Cats: James and Zeigler scored 26 each, Vescovi and Aidoo had 11 each, and Knecht had 16.
While James had a huge scoring night on Saturday, the key for the 6-foot-6 guard/forward will be to build on the success. James has had two 20-point scoring outputs this season (20 at UNC, 23 vs NCSU) and followed up each one with another double-digit scoring game in the teens.
The Vols will return to Knoxville to host LSU this Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. ET before heading to the Lone Star State for a matchup with Texas A&M on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m. ET.
All in all, Rick Barnes set a challenge for his team to be more aggressive and take more scoring ownership against Kentucky in a critical Top 10 SEC rivalry game on Saturday night in Rupp Arena coming off of a home loss to South Carolina.
Josiah-Jordan James took the challenge and ran with it as he dropped 26 points on Kentucky on Saturday night. Will the Tennessee veteran be able to build on the success moving forward in conference play? We’ll just have to wait and see.
No. 5 Tennessee defeated No. 10 Kentucky by a score of 103-92 on Saturday night in Rupp Arena.
