Tennessee Basketball’s run in the SEC Tournament came to a close on Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the event. The 5-seed Vols fell to the 4-seed Vanderbilt Commodores by a score of 75-68 in Bridgestone Arena.
The story of the game overall was Vanderbilt guard Duke Miles scoring 30 points, including a 9-of-9 stretch to start his day. Miles knocked down four three-pointers and hit the rest near or at the rim for a monster day. Tennessee, on the other hand, had no real answer for Miles’ production. Tennessee guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie scored a team-high 21 points, but Nate Ament struggled in his second game back from injury. He tallied 12 points but only went 1-of-13 from the floor, knocking down 10 free throws in the game.
Tennessee and Vanderbilt went back and forth for much of the first half and entered halftime tied at 31. Tennessee had the lead for the first seven minutes of the second half, but Vanderbilt fought back and kept the Vols at arm’s length for the rest of the contest. Tennessee won the rebounding battle by 12, but had three more turnovers than Vanderbilt. Some of Tennessee’s turnovers came in critical stretches.
“From our perspective, second-half turnovers hurt us,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said after the game. “We had a chance a couple different times to put ourselves in a position to stay in the game the way we needed to. Even when we had a lead, the second-half turnovers really came at the wrong time.”
After the game, Tennessee and Vanderbilt both conducted postgame press conferences. Tennessee’s consisted of Rick Barnes, Ja’Kobi Gillespie, and JP Estrella, while Vanderbilt’s consisted of Mark Byington, Tyler Tanner, and Duke Miles.
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Check out both postgame interviews from Nashville below:
Tennessee (HC Rick Barnes, Ja’Kobi Gillespie, JP Estrella)
Vanderbilt (HC Mark Byington, Tyler Tanner, Duke Miles)
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