LEXINGTON, Ky. — Tennessee’s five starters broke their tight huddle to walk to mid court for the opening tip off when Zakai Zeigler grabbed Felix Okpara and Igor Milicic and shared a few more words.
“I was just telling them, go get every rebound,” Zeigler said postgame. “If nobody else gets a rebound, nobody on our team gets a rebound— if they get every single one I’d be the happiest dude in the world. I feel like they did an amazing job crashing the glass, getting to the boards today.”
That they did. Tennessee’s front court of Milicic, Okpara and Cade Phillips rose to the occasion against a strong UCLA inside game as the Vols knocked off the Bruins 67-58 to advance to the Sweet 16 for the third straight time. The trio combined for 20 rebounds as Tennessee won the battle of the boards 36-26.
“We actually, today, watched a little bit of film for literally like three minutes,” Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark said. “All we did was show clips of Igor and Felix throughout the year just rebounding the ball in traffic. Really controlling the backboard and we showed clips of them playing with a lot of emotion and energy.”
Milicic totaled seven rebounds, just the second time he’s reached the number in the last eight games. The Charlotte transfer was Tennessee’s best rebounder for most of the season and got back to being that guy against UCLA.
“In 25 minutes, he has seven rebounds,” Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey said. “Six defensive and one on the offensive glass. That’s what we need.”
Okpara grabbed seven rebounds himself including four on the offensive end. Phillips played 22 minutes, his third most of the season, and grabbed six rebounds himself.
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“That’s what we need from those guys,” Clark said. “I’m really proud of those guys, man. They answered the bell and we challenged them to be that and they did a great job of it.”
“That was awesome,” Phillips said. “We came out and I felt like we sent a message early rebounding wise. The bigs group, the core four, we kind of challenged ourselves to have a game we dominated. They’re a big team. They’re a physical team. We wanted to go in and impose our will. The guys did a good job of that.”
The group’s effort on the glass was only half the battle for Tennessee. Offensively, UCLA leaned on the front court duo of Tyler Bilodeau and Aday Mara. Both came out hot, combining to score 12 points in the game’s first 12.5 minutes.
But Tennessee stayed the course and eventually wore on the duo. They scored just 10 points in the final 27 minutes of the game with three points coming in the final 30 seconds when the game was over.
“They were making tough shots and they’re good players so that’s what they do,” Phillips said. “But we knew that those shots weren’t going in the whole day. We stuck to our principles and I think the physicality that we play with wears on people. Post catches start getting a little further out and people start backing down a little less. It was a combination of sticking to principles and a little bit of wear and tear.”
“We felt like them playing in isolations with the big guys for an entire game, they weren’t going to score enough— they wouldn’t be able to manifest enough points to beat us that way,” Clark said. “And obviously it held true. Our big guys were going to start winning those one-on-one battles as they did.”
Tennessee’s three key front court players combined to score just 13 points in the Vols’ Round of 32 win over UCLA. But they did just what Tennessee needed from them to win, playing stout defense and controlling the boards.
