No. 22 Tennessee won 73-66 in overtime against USC to advance to the championship of the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Tennessee had a much better start on Thursday than it did on Wednesday against Butler. The Vols turned it over just three times in the first half compared to 10 first half turnovers against Butler.
“I feel like a lot of our offense comes from our defense,” forward Olivier Nkamhoua said. “So whenever we are playing good defense and our focus is on the defensive end and we are turning them over, we get to our offense better and we get to that run-and-gun type of basketball. We are able to play faster.”
USC came out scorching hot, hitting 50% of its shots and shooting 44% from deep. The Trojans capped off the half with a three at the buzzer from Boogie Ellis, who had 15 first half points.
Vols’ freshman Julian Phillips continued to impress in the first half, scoring 13 points on an efficient 57%. Phillips’s aggressiveness from Wednesday translated to Thursday as he hit four early free throws in the first half. He finished the game with 25 points with eight of them coming at the line.
“He is staying aggressive,” Nkamhoua said. “He is seeing his opportunity every day to get better and better. Every game, he is getting more experience.”
Jahmai Mashack also had a solid first half with seven points, including a huge fast-break dunk that gave the Vols some energy late in the half.
USC came out hot in the second half, using a 9-0 run to regain the lead and then some on the Vols. Tennessee managed to counter USC’s run with an 10-0 run to regain the lead at the midway point of the second half.
“Just the sets that coach was calling. I think my teammates and I executed it well,” Phillips said. “I think we got the shots we wanted through our offense. I think that is what led to it.”
Tennessee struggled to find a basket late, but Uros Plasvic hit a late basket to tie it up with a minute to go.
Santiago Vescovi’s last-second shot attempt missed and USC didn’t make one either, and the game went into overtime.
Vescovi hit a big three in overtime to give the Vols a three-point lead with less than two minutes to play.
Tennessee forced some bad shots and two huge turnovers late and Zakai Zeigler hit his free throws to make it a five-point game as the Vols held on to win.
“There at the end, I thought our guys really did a good job of forcing tough shots,” Barnes said.
The Vols now look to Kansas, who they will take on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. ET in the championship game for the Battle 4 Atlantis.
“I think this tournament has been great for us. We still haven’t gotten our feet under us totally,” Barnes said. “Playing against a team like we did yesterday, then coming back today against a zone team. First time all year we’ve played against a team that plays a lot of zone. But we knew it wouldn’t be easy and it wasn’t.”
