Most things clicked for Tennessee basketball.
The Vols powered their way to an 89-66 defeat of Oklahoma, putting together a balanced outing on both ends of the floor. Tennessee (19-7, 9-5 SEC) racked up 31 points off the Sooners’ (13-13, 3-10) giveaways, rallying behind a tenacious defensive effort to limit one of the country’s more complete offenses.
Nate Ament led all scorers with 29 points, adding six rebounds and three assists. Felix Okpara notched a career-high 18 points while grabbing seven boards. Ja’Kobi Gillespie piled up 16 points, tallying eight assists and a program-record eight steals.
Nijel Pack paced Oklahoma with 20 points.
Forward J.P. Estrella missed the contest due to left foot soreness. His status is day-to-day.
Easy pickins
The Vols took what the Sooners gave them, literally.
Tennessee converted for 18 points off turnovers in the first half, turning Oklahoma’s blunders into scars on the scoreboard. Gillespie’s four steals headlined a stanza where the Sooners committed nine giveaways in total, leading to a fast-paced opening 20 minutes.
Gillespie led the charge of one of the Vols’ more aggressive offensive halves of the season, piercing through a poor Oklahoma defense that finds itself ranked in the doldrums of the SEC.
A team prone to slumps in ball security itself, Tennessee took care of the rock to help build an early cushion. Head coach Rick Barnes’ group yielded just two giveaways in the first half to gain a sizable advantage in one of the key margins of the game.
Spreading the wealth
Already without one of their most consistent scorers of the past few weeks, the Vols didn’t allow Estrella’s absence to leave a hole in the scoring department.
Six scorers helped power Tennessee to a 45-36 halftime lead on an evenly distributed statsheet. Ament drained a pair of midrange shots in the opening minutes to get himself going towards a game-best 12 points at the break, while Gillespie contributed nine tallies of his own.
The usually productive duo didn’t jog to the locker room without any help this time, though. Okpara filled the shoes of his sidelined big man nicely, registering nine points in a rare offensive outburst. DeWayne Brown II and Jaylen Carey banged their way around down low to combine for 11 points to boot.
Even still, the Sooners enjoyed a solid 52% half from the field to keep within reach during one of the Vols’ most efficient offensive periods thus far.
Half of runs
Tennessee emerged for the second half with some juice, piecing together an 11-2 run to grow its lead into the teens. Oklahoma promptly responded with a nine-point spring, cutting its deficit back into single digits.
Carey had the chance to make things a little more comfortable for the home faithful with a pair of trips to the charity stripe, but he came up empty on both occasions. The 267-pound found it hard to find the same scoring mojo he had earlier, missing five straight looks in the paint before heading for a breather.
The Sooners kept eating away.
Icing it away
Once again, the Vols leaned on their young weapon.
Ament slammed home a two-handed slam to spark an 11-0 run, all but cementing the proceedings as Tennessee’s lead climbed back into double figures. Gillespie swiped two more steals to eclipse his career high, putting the cap on one of the point guard’s finest outings of the campaign.
The Vols will head to Nashville for a meeting with rival Vanderbilt on Feb. 21.
