In winning a March Madness game for the fourth straight year, Tennessee Basketball went against two trends. The Vols struggled to defend the three, but Chaz Lanier bailed them out by meeting the moment with a dominant performance in Lexington, Ky., Thursday night.
The No. 2 seed Vols, ranked No. 6 in both polls, beat the No. 15 seed and Southern Conference Champion Wofford Terriers SCORE at Rupp Arena. Although the game was never in question, UT could never quite pull away from Dwight Perry’s team until late because they shot 40 percent from three.
Meanwhile, the Vols didn’t get much down low on offense. Luckily for them, Lanier entered the fray. In his first ever March madness outing, Lanier returned to what he looked like in non-conference play, scoring 29 points while going 6-of-13 from beyond the arc, tying a program record for three-pointers made in an NCAA Tournament game.
UT seemed to take control early, going on a suffocating run and building a 22-8 lead with just under 10 minutes to go, Lanier, scoring 10 of those points. It seemed as if they would run away with it, but Wofford fought back in the final 10 minutes of the first half to only trail 36-27 at halftime.
Although they never did cut it to close than nine in the second half, the Vols had to methodically pull away in the final 10 minutes of the game. They did it thanks to Lanier continuing to go off and with a lot of help from Zakai Zeigler, who had a double-double with 12 points and 12 assists.
In addition to Lanier and Zeigler, the Vols were able to step up with their interior defense, as Kyler Filewich, Wofford’s 6’9″ center who averaged 11.9 points and 9.4 rebounds on the game, finished with just two points. Felix Okpara did his job. Wofford was just too efficient from outside, going 11-of-26.
Still, Rick Barnes’ team is moving on in March Madness, and that’s all this tourney is about. They improve to 28-7 on the year while Wofford finished the season 19-16. Up next for Tennessee is the NCAA Tournament Round of 32 matchup Saturday against the No. 7 seed UCLA Bruins, who beat the No. 10 seed Utah State Aggies 72-47 Thursday.
