Tennessee came alive from the three-point line in the second half to surge past the Orange
Knoxville, Tenn. – The SEC/ACC challenge came to Knoxville Tuesday night with Tennessee playing host to Syracuse.
Syracuse was the third of four ACC teams Tennessee will meet in non-conference play. It won at Louisville (11/9), beat Virginia (11/21) in the Bahamas and will face Miami (12/10) in New York.
The Orange are 4-2 on the season meanwhile Tennessee was off to a 7-0 start.
Tennessee would certainly take advantage of a Syracuse team not featuring its leading scorer in J.J. Starling after he suffered a left hand injury at practice on Monday, according to the team. He traveled with the team to Tennessee but would not play Tuesday night.
Following a Tennessee win and a 8-0 start to the season and a 96-70 victory, here are three things to know.
1 – Defense feeding offense
First points of the game came after Tennessee’s Chaz Lanier steals the ball from Donnie Freeman, in transition dishes to Zakai Zeigler, his three-point try was no good, but Felix Okpara gets the offensive rebound and finishes with a dunk.
On Syracuse’s next possession, Jahamai Mashack gets the steal, and on the fast break driving to the bucket takes the foul and makes the free throw to give Tennessee an early 5-2 lead.
Just as quickly, Zeigler gets the steal and lobs it to Lanier for the alley-oop.
Tennessee would go on a near four minute scoring drought with five minutes to go in the half, but Tennessee’s defense helped to end that. Cuse’s Kyle Cuffe Jr. turned it over with a Milicic steal, scrambling on the ground for the loose ball he finds Zeigler, dishes him the ball and he quickly gets to the top of the arc where he sinks the triple try to make it 39-28.
Then again another scoring drought, this one lasting 2:49 without a field goal, meanwhile Cuse made six of their last eight to close the first half.
To start the second half, Milicic comes up with a defensive board and on the other end sinks a three pointer.
At the 15:43 mark, Jordan Gainey would grab the defensive rebound and just like Milicic he’d connected on a triple try to make it 57-39.
His defense continued well into the second half, after Chris Bell blocked Lanier’s layup he took the defensive rebound to the other end but didn’t get far as Gainey was there to snatch the ball away and on the fast break threw it down for the team’s sixth dunk on the night.
2 – Cade Phillips exploding off the bench
Entering half time, Cade Phillips was second on the team in scoring with 10 points and they came quick.
Phillips first came off the bench with at the 15:22 mark and in his first seconds on the floor, he registered a defense rebound.
Then he made three straight field goals; a layup, dunk, midrange jumper.
A few minutes later, he come up with a big time dunk that got the whole Tennessee bench on its feet!
He add a nice tip in after a Milicic three was a little off target.
He was 5-5 from the field before missing his final shot of the first half.
In the second half, Phillips subbed in at 18:07 and dunked on Syracuse at 17:39 to extend the Vols’ lead 52-39.
Later as Cuse’s Petar Majstorovic tries to go up for the layup, Phillips was right there to come up with a big time block.
Not even 20 seconds later, Phillips grabs the loose ball to give Tennessee chance to extend its lead. Jordan Gainey connected on another corner three to make it 65-43.
3 – Raining treys
Tennessee averages nine threes a game on a 38% clip. With how the game started, it wasn’t evident that the team would find their shot on the perimeter against the Cuse.
In the first half, they were 2 of 15 from the three-point line.
Lanier was 0-5 on his attempts and then in the second half, he was 4-of-5 with 5:45 remaining.
After Felix Okpara grabbed the defensive rebound, he dished it to Lanier on the fast break and sank the three-point try to cap an 11-0 run with 7:21 left in the game and for the Vols’ ninth triple of the night.
That three-pointer was Lanier’s fourth of the game and his 26th point on the night. His third game this season where he scored 20 or more points.
With 1:59 left, Zeigler recorded the team’s 10th three-pointer.
Two shy of the team’s season-high of 12 which came against Baylor.
Tennessee ended the night 10-29 on a 34.5% clip.