Off to its best regular season start since the previous decade, the Tennessee men’s basketball team faced its first true road test of the season on Sunday.
Facing off against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at McCamish Pavillion, the Vols were poised and ready for the challenge.
Sophomore guard Lamonte Turner led Tennessee with a season-high 24 points on 6-for-12 shooting as the Volunteers defeated the Yellow Jackets 77-70.
Admiral Schofield scored 10 points, Grant Williams added 11, and Jordan Bowden hit double-figures as well, with 10, but this game wasn’t as pretty as some of the Vols’ previous wins.
Their trend of quick offensive starts did not follow them south.
Through the first half’s opening six minutes, Tennessee trailed 10-9 and weren’t getting many shots to fall. Bowden answered with a personal 6-0 run as he knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to give the Vols a 15-12 lead.
That’s when Tennessee found its rhythm.
James Daniel followed that with a three of his own to extend UT’s lead to 22-18. The Volunteers ended the half on a 13-7 run to take a 35-29 lead at the intermission.
While they ended the first half on a good note, good fortunes did not immediately follow.
Georgia Tech opened the second half by scoring 11 points in six minutes, pulling one point and trailing 41-40.
At that point, Turner decided to take on much of the offensive burden to lift it from the Vols. He would go on to score 14 points the rest of the way while knocking down all nine of his free throw attempts.
As a team from the free throw line, the Vols were quiet in the first half. In the second half, they knocked down 23 of 27 (.852) free throw attempts as they went on to score 42 points in the second half.
The free throw shooting turned out to be one of the biggest differences; the Yellow Jackets struggled from the free-throw line and shot just 67 percent.
Defensively, Tennessee held the Yellow Jackets to 38.9 percent shooting and allowed just six 3-pointers. Ben Lammers proved to be tough to stop, leading Georgia Tech with 17 points and nine rebounds.
Although the Vols were out-rebounded slightly (36-35), Turner’s individual performance overcame several minor struggles. Despite finishing just 3-for-8 from beyond the arc, the sophomore guard added three rebounds, two assists and a steal.
The Yellow Jackets’ defense caused several problems for the Volunteer offense, as they switched from man-to-man to zone defense throughout the game to confuse the Vols. As a team, the Vols shot 43.4 percent from the field and hit 40 percent of their threes for the second consecutive game.
Tennessee (6-1) will face Lipscomb on Saturday to kick off a three-game home-stand that includes a visit from defending champion North Carolina on Dec. 17.
Having now won three straight and four of their last five games, the Vols now find themselves in a position they haven’t been in since Bruce Pearl roamed the sidelines.
