Tennessee guard Chaz Lanier has been tagged as the co-SEC Player of the Week on Monday after lighting up the scoreboard on Saturday. Alabama guard Mark Sears was the other half of that weekly award.
With Tennessee having a mid-week bye before their Top 10 clash with Texas A&M on Saturday, Lanier needed a lights-out performance against the Aggies to be in consideration – and he did.
Lanier scored a season-high 30 points in the SEC victory with an astounding 22 points on 6-of-7 three-point shooting in the first 20 minutes of action. Lanier’s hot shooting was the main factor in Tennessee’s ability to withstand a slow start in a charged-up SEC road environment.
The former North Florida transfer hit Tennessee’s first three field goals of the game against the Aggies, which all came from behind the three-point line. Lanier had nine of Tennessee’s first 13 points against the Aggies with the other four coming from free-throw makes from Igor Milicic Jr. and Jordan Gainey.
Ultimately, by the time Tennessee went into halftime leading 36-32, Lanier had scored 61% of Tennessee’s first-half points.
“As you know, he has got a quick release,” Rick Barnes said about Lanier after the game. “But I love the fact he started, the last couple weeks, driving the ball downhill to make people not able to always just sit on his jump shot. But he’s worked hard, his teammates believe in him and, again, we’ve seen him do it.”
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Through 27 games this season, Lanier is averaging 18.0 points per game which is good for 69th in the nation and fourth in the SEC behind Texas’ Tre Johnson, Alabama’s Mark Sears, and Auburn’s Johni Broome.
Saturday’s win over Texas A&M was also good for Lanier’s 10th game in a row with a double-digit scoring total and his 25th game overall with 10 points or more.
This is Lanier’s third SEC Player of the Week win after the other two came in November and January, respectively. The 6-foot-4 guard took home the award in non-conference play after scoring 51 points in two games across the Baha Mar Hoops Championship and one in January after dropping 29 points in the Vols’ SEC opener against Arkansas.
Tennessee and Lanier have four games left on the regular season slate: at LSU, vs No. 4 Alabama, at No. 24 Ole Miss, and vs South Carolina.
Alabama guard Mark Sears joins Lanier with the award after scoring 35 in a loss against Missouri and 30 in a win over Kentucky.
