Since Tennessee’s win against Memphis on Saturday, the headlines have been dominated by postgame comments from Tigers’ head coach Penny Hardaway and Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes.
Junior point guard Jordan Bone was at the forefront of the postgame discussion due to a technical foul he was issued late in the game.
On Wednesday, Bone and Tennessee returned to the hardwood as Samford came to Knoxville for a meeting with the No. 3 Vols. Despite the Bulldogs keeping it close for the majority of the game, Tennessee pulled away in the latter stages of the second half to earn an 83-70 win at Thompson-Boling Arena.
“I think Samford’s got a heck of a basketball team,” Barnes said. “I told our team, ‘we beat a good team tonight.’”
Bone paced the Vols with a career-high 24 points and a career-high 11 assists. He was 11 of 16 from the field.
“We sat down yesterday for a while and talked about a lot of different things,” Barnes said. “He wants to be a really good player, but I think it gets back to him understanding just how talented he is…he attacked the elbows and got to the basket.”
In a game where the home team entered as substantial favorites against the mid-major challenger, distraction seemed evident in a first half dictated by runs from both teams.
After a shaky start, Tennessee used an 8-0 spurt to take the lead. Samford responded with a 12-0 run to re-take the lead and silence the home crowd, but the Vols would have the last laugh before intermission with a 20-4 run to close the half. Tennessee led 41-32 at the break.
Bone had 16 points and five assists in the first half. Senior Admiral Schofield was the only other Vol in double figures at halftime, as he recorded 10 points in the opening frame.
“It felt amazing,” Bone said. “That’s the ultimate goal is me being a point guard out there getting to my spots and making it a lot easier for my teammates and getting them going. It definitely felt good to have career-high 11 assists.”
Samford pulled within five in the second half, but Tennessee put its foot on the pedal and held a double-digit lead for the final 11:35 of the contest.
Schofield added to Bone’s production, finishing with 18 points and seven rebounds. Junior Grant Williams notched 16 points and five rebounds.
“Admiral has been a real warrior,” Barnes said. “Thirty-eight minutes is hard to do…Grant’s got to rebound more. He got himself in foul trouble in the first half.”
Sophomore Yves Pons made his sixth consecutive start after replacing Jordan Bowden in the starting lineup. Pons tallied just four points, but he recorded nine rebounds.
Forward John Fulkerson did not play in the game due to a shoulder injury. Derrick Walker played six minutes and was 2 of 2 from the floor.
“He doesn’t have a clue what happened,” Barnes said. “He had a really good practice a couple days ago and he came in not yesterday, but the day before, and said ‘I am having a hard time raising my arm.’
“I thought Derrick (Walker) gave us some good minutes.”
Tennessee returns to action on Saturday against Wake Forest at Thompson-Boling Arena. The game is set to tip off at noon ET and can be seen on ESPN2.
Last season, the Vols defeated the Demon Deacons 79-60 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, behind a 17-point outing from Bone.
“We just do what we do,” Williams said. “We just came into practice every day. That’s what we are as a veteran team. We are just focused on the next game. Samford’s a talented team, we knew they have a lot of talented players. We’ll do the same thing this week coming up against Wake Forest…their starting five is pretty good.”
