Tennessee jumped ahead of St. Joseph’s early and didn’t look back as the Vols coasted past the Hawks for their fifth consecutive win to open the season, 102-66.
For the second straight game, six Vols scored in double figures and guards Victor Bailey Jr. and Santiago Vescovi both scored season highs.
Here are three takeaways.
Vols start fast
Just over two minutes into the game, St. Joe’s Ryan Daly made one of two free throws to tie the game at four. Tennessee’s Yves Pons would score just nine seconds later and the Vols wouldn’t look back, going on a 16-0 run.
The run was sparked by outside shooting from UT including a trio of made three pointers. The run lasted 3:46 with Tennessee pushing its lead to 16 points. The Vols would never lead by single digits again.
Tennessee’s defense harassed St. Joe’s during the stretch, forcing five turnovers and shooting zero-of-four.
“On the defensive end we have to go even harder to make our offense a lot easier for ourselves,” freshman guard Keon Johnson said.
Vols’ offense impresses again
Tennessee reached a pair of impressive offensive outputs for the second straight game. The Vols tallied triple digits and had six players score in double digits for the second time in as many games.
The back-to-back 100 plus point performances was the first time Tennessee had scored in triple digits in back-to-back games since the 2006-07 season.
Victor Bailey Jr. led the way for Tennessee’s offense scoring 18 points on five-of-10 shooting while dishing out three assists.
After being held scoreless against Tennessee Tech, Santiago Vescovi came back hot, scoring a season high 16 points on four-of-eight shooting from three-point range. Vescovi also dished out five assists and grabbed seven rebounds.
“I thought Santiago was really good,” Barnes said. “He got back to where he was looking to shoot the ball. The more effective he is, when people know he’s willing to shoot those deep bombs, the better he is as a player. He had turned down a lot of shots prior to this game and we told him ‘hey you’ve got to take em’ and he’s going to make a nice percentage of them.”
The double digit scoring performances marked season highs from both Bailey and Vescovi.
Yves Pons, John Fulkerson, Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer joined the guards by scoring double digits while E.J. Anosike and Josiah Jordan James were far behind with nine and seven points respectively.
Tennessee’s offense was once again efficient, shooting 50% from the field and 42% from behind the arc as the Vols made a season high 10 triples. The Vols assisted on 23 of its 31 baskets while turning it over just 10 times in a high possession game.
“We have a group that really understands what we’re trying to do,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “We knew it would be a high possession game. Could we take care of the ball in a high possession game? I thought for the most part we did do that. … It was a really good offensive performance with another night where we had three guys have five assists. There were 23 assists on 10 turnovers against a team that, at that pace, was overall a pretty nice job.”
Hawks find some offensive success
This is very relative, but St. Joe’s did some strong things on offense that gave Tennessee more problems than they have all season.
The Hawks scored just 66 points, 11 under their per game average, but the total was the first time this season that an opponent broke the 60s against the Big Orange.
“They do some really good things that are hard things to defend,” Barnes said. “We did more switching tonight then we probably have ever. We had to do that, because they can really get you twisted up. The start was important, but I told the team; the way we finished it with that group out there (was important) because those minutes are valuable; every possession matters.”
St. Joe’s gave Tennessee issues with its ability and willingness to shoot from beyond the arc and drive hard to the basket.
The Hawks shot 21 free throws with 15 points coming at the charity stripe.
Still, Tennessee held the Hawks to just 40% shooting from the field and 21% from three-point range and St. Joe’s 18 turnovers were their most of the season.
“They’re a really good team,” forward E.J. Anosike said. “All credit to them. They have really good players. We knew they shot a lot of threes so you have to really play defense and go out there and guard. From our standpoint, we feel like we executed what we needed to execute.”
Up Next
Tennessee returns to action Wednesday night when they host South Carolina- Upstate to Thompson-Boling Arena. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
