Tennessee basketball improved to 18-6 (8-3 SEC) by dominating Arkansas 92-63 on Wednesday night in Fayetteville.
The Vols earned their first win at Bud Walton Arena since 2009, ending a seven-game road losing streak in the series. Rick Barnes team did it in style, earning their second most lopsided SEC win this century.
Tennessee faced the same adversity that they did at Texas A&M on Saturday as a poor three-point shooting team came out red-hot from deep. After believing his team didn’t respond the right way against the Aggies, Rick Barnes liked the response against Arkansas.
“The real good part about it was that we had a game plan and we stuck to it,” Barnes said. “I thought that defensively especially, we were pretty consistent throughout the game. We said, hey, we’re not going to jump out there if they make the threes early, which we expect them to be a little jacked up. And we’re going to stick with it. … Just really proud of the mental concentration on the defensive end.”
Three Tennessee players exploded on the offensive end. Dalton Knecht had a typical 22 points while Jordan Gainey came off the bench to total 17 points in the win. But Jonas Aidoo was the game’s leading scorer.
The junior big man totaled 23 points on an incredibly efficient nine-of-11 shooting from the field while grabbing 12 rebounds. Aidoo was the best player on the court on Wednesday night.
“I thought he played to the rim. That was a big thing,” Barnes said. “He played with some force in there. The last couple days we told him he’s got to play quicker. And I thought he did that. I thought he mixed in a few stationary jump shots that we know he’s capable of making and rebounded. He had a major presence on that (defensive) end down there, too.”
Following the game, RTI’s Ric Butler and Ryan Schumpert discussed Aidoo’s big game and much more on the Vols’ blowout victory. Check out the RTI Instant Reaction here.
