BamaCentral Courtside: Alabama Basketball 68, Arkansas 67
Tennessee’s dominance over Vanderbilt in the Rick Barnes’ continued Saturday as the Vols’ outlasted a second half Commodores’ to earn a 73-64 win. The rivalry win was Tennessee’s 10 straight over Vanderbilt.
The Vols’ offense continued their recent strong play in the first half, scoring 44 points as 10 Tennessee players scored and four scored between seven and eight points.
Tennessee looked like it was going to run away with the game early in the second half, but Vanderbilt used a 17-2 run to cut Tennessee’s lead to one-point.
“Obviously, the foul trouble hurt us but the whole time that we were up, I felt that they would try and make a push,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “I also felt like, at the start of the second half, we came out like it was just going to be a shooting contest. We did not run a very good offense which allowed them to get settled in. We did not play very good defense at the start of the second half. I think you have to give them credit. … On offense, I thought we got a bit impatient. I did not think we moved the ball tonight as well as we had been doing it and playing with speed. When we were able to get the game under control at the end, we were playing with speed, moving the ball and playing with a type of passion that we need to play with on both ends.”
From there, Tennessee leaned on its defense to earn its seventh straight SEC win.
Despite dealing with foul trouble for much of the game, Tennessee’s backcourt came up big in the win. Zakai Zeigler scored a game high 16 points while dishing out five assists and Santiago Vescovi scored 10 points while making three triples.
Five-star point guard Kennedy Chandler was ineffective for much of the game, but took over late, scoring six straight points in the midst of a 8-0 run that pushed Tennessee’s lead to 10 point.
“There at the end, he showed the burst that we need him to play with,” Barnes said of Chandler. “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.
Barnes also discussed his respect for Jerry Stackhouse and Vanderbilt’s program, what “Pushin P” means and more.
