It’s always nice to watch a bit of history being made, and on the day before Thanksgiving, Tennessee did just that on the hardwood, as the Vols beat the UT-Martin Skyhawks 78-35. It’s the fewest amount of points ever scored in a game at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center.
UT held the Skyhawks to 12-of-53 from the field, 6-of-31 from three and forced 18 turnovers. They had an insane nine blocks, four from Felix Okpara, two from Igor Milicic Jr. and two from Cade Phillips, and they also had six steals, two from Zakai Zeigler.
All of that is the good news for Rick Barnes’ team. The bad news, though is they only scored 78 points, and it’s not because they were trying to run out the clock. The Vols shot just 10-of-37 from three, and it’s why they didn’t win this game by 60 like they should have.
Why does that matter so much?
Well, the Vols’ defense was fine coming into this game. They don’t need to worry about holding teams to historically low scoring outputs. That won’t matter in March, as they will inevitably face a team that gets red-hot from shooting downtown, which is when defense becomes irrelevant.
At that point, you need your offense to step up, and if you aren’t hitting from the outside, you’ve got to find a way to manufacture points. Last year, Dalton Knecht did that. This year, Chaz Lanier does that, and he did indeed go 4-of-13 from three en route to 18 points Wednesday.
However, what was key to this year was recreating Knecht in the aggregate, and that didn’t reveal itself. Zeigler did have 11 points, Jordan Gainey had eight, and Jahmai Mashack had seven, but nobody was able to go off from the outside. The idea was that with so many options, one would always be hot.
Milicic was off from the outside, going 1-of-5 at the four. He still had nine points while Okpara had 10, but the size mismatch was always going to make that the case. The truth of the matter is the Vols need to be breaking 80 in these type of games.
Now, in addition to the defense and Lanier still manufacturing points, it’s a huge positive that Darlinstone Dubar saw more minutes. He scored seven points in just 13 minutes out there, and his role is likely to increase a lot soon. With J.P. Estrella out, that gives the Vols another scoring option.
Overall, it’s no time to hit the panic button or even worry. The truth is just that the Vols showed in this game they still have things to work on, and the historically great defense can’t outweigh that.
Ranked No. 7 in the AP Poll and No. 6 in the Coaches Poll, the Vols improve to 7-0 and will next host the Syracuse Orange on Tuesday, Dec. 3. UT-Martin falls to 2-5 on the year and will next face the Charleston Southern Buccaneers that same Tuesday.
