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Tennessee used strong defense and timely baskets from its guards to withstand a Vanderbilt run and earn a, 73-64, victory at Thompson-Boling Arena Saturday night.
Coming off its best three-game offensive stretch of the season, Tennessee looked like it was going to continue the strong stretch. The Vols’ offense was simply fantastic in the first half, tallying 44 points while getting open looks nearly every possession.
Santiago Vescovi set the tone, hitting a triple on Tennessee’s first possession while Zakai Zeigler came off the bench and immediately gave Vanderbilt’s guards issues.
Tennessee leaned on Zeigler in round two against the Commodores. Both Santiago Vescovi and Kennedy Chandler battled foul trouble throughout the game. Each guard picked up two fouls in the first half, a third foul in the first minutes of the second half and a fourth foul.
“There are some of them where we cannot foul,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “We talked to them all the time, and we can never go forward. Kennedy has a 6’7 wingspan and he has to learn how to use it vertically. It is very difficult when you go up and come down, whether if there is contact or not, it looks like a foul, and more times than not, it is a foul. With Santi’s fourth foul, he cannot do that. I know he is playing hard and aggressive; I mean his presence in the game means more than that steal at that point in time. We have to get a little bit smarter. There is a fine line between being aggressive and being overly aggressive or being careless.”
That gave Zeigler more time on the court as the only primary ball handler and the player responsible for making Tennessee’s offense click.
The Long Island, New York native answered the bell, scoring a team-high 16 points on five-of-10 shooting while adding four rebounds, five assists, two steals, one block and zero turnovers.
Despite not playing his best game, Vescovi’s elite three-point shooting showed up. The junior guard made three-of-six three-point attempts while scoring in double-figures for the 12th time in 12 SEC games.
Vescovi recorded just one assist, but it was a pretty one. The lefty drove down the left baseline, finding an open Zeigler who drilled a wide open triple.
The three-pointer gave Tennessee a 16-point lead just three minutes into the second half and it looked like the Vols might run Vanderbilt out of the gym.
Instead, Vanderbilt made three-pointers on three straight possessions and didn’t look back, using a 17-2 run to cut Tennessee’s lead to one-point.
“We came out really lackadaisical in the second half,” Zeigler said. “We came out looking like we were just going to win, it was going to be an easy game. Vandy fought back—they weren’t going to give it to us. They knew what they had to do. They executed. We just had to come together as a team and know we were not going to lose this game. We just had to do exactly what we had to do and up the pressure on defense.”
The Commodores never completely erased Tennessee’s lead, but after trailing by double-digits for most of the evening, Vanderbilt was in the thick of the game with five minutes to play.
That’s where Tennessee found some distance again. It’s also where freshman point guard Kennedy Chandler asserted himself. After a scoreless 35 minutes, Chandler scored six straight points for Tennessee. All three baskets came at the rim as the Vols pushed their lead back to 10 points with three minutes to play.
“I thought he played a little tired tonight,” Barnes said of Chandler. “He wasn’t pushing the ball the way that we needed him to, and he wasn’t bringing the speed, but there at the end, he showed the burst that we need him to play with. We need that from him, and we need it on both ends. At the end, the guards were the ones that made the big plays for us down the stretch.
Even from there, Tennessee didn’t run away with it as they failed to make another basket and the Commodores came within five. However, Tennessee’s defense took them home. The Vols gave up just five points in the final three minutes including just one made basket as Josiah-Jordan James drilled four free throws to ice the game.
Tennessee’s offense didn’t explode the way it has the last few games, but that’s how the Vols are going to have to beat good teams. With strong guard play and elite defense. That combination allowed Tennessee to overcome a poor second half for its 10th straight win over rival Vanderbilt.
It also gave the Vols their seventh-straight SEC win and set the scene for Tuesday night’s marquee matchup against No. 5 Kentucky.
