Tennessee basketball clinched the outright regular season SEC Championship on Wednesday night by knocking off South Carolina 66-59 in Columbia.
The Vols jumped out to an early lead and never looked back avenging their loss against South Carolina in Knoxville at the end of January.
At that point, Tennessee was 5-2 in SEC play and was headed on the road for a challenging matchup at Kentucky. But the Vols knocked off the Wildcats and haven’t looked back since. They’re 9-1 since that game including road wins at Kentucky, Alabama and now South Carolina.
Tennessee’s defense was fantastic against the Gamecocks. The Vols held South Carolina to less than 60 points on 38% shooting from the field, 27% shooting from the three-point line and just .983 points per possession.
It was a slow night for Tennessee offensively, but Dalton Knecht was once again fantastic. The Vols scoring sensation scored 26 points on nine-of-23 shooting from the field and was the only player to score over 20 points in the game.
“The one thing about Dalton, he’s not afraid,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “He’s not, he’s got a real short memory and he’s very confident. He thinks he can score. He thinks every shot he shoots is gonna go in. And so he’s a guy that I do think the guys feed off of him.”
Following the game, RTI’s Ric Butler and Ryan Schumpert discussed the Vols third straight top 25 win, Knecht’s big performance and much more. Check it out here.
