Shocked news: As the head coach of Tennessee volunteers has vol to resign due to………
FAYETTEVILLE — Tennessee has found its mid-season groove with 10 wins in its last 11 games, including a 91-71 blowout of Alabama on Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn.
The Volunteers are scoring at a high clip with an average of 85 points per game in their last six outings, and that pairs with the SEC’s top field-goal defense, which is holding opponents to 37.8% shooting from the floor.
Tennessee (14-4 overall, 4-1 SEC) held three-point crazy Alabama to 4 of 21 (19%) shooting from three-point range by keeping Coach Nate Oats’ squad four three-point shot attempts below their average.
Coach Rick Barnes was asked in his postgame news conference whether he liked his team’s offense, which shot 48.5% overall and 10 for 28 (35.7%) from three-point range, or defense better against Alabama.
“Defense,” Barnes said. “Because today we played against obviously one of the best offensive teams in the country. Nate does a great job of putting his guys in position. His schemes are great. They spread you out and they’re really a difficult team to guard.”
Alabama is second in the SEC behind Kentucky in scoring (89.2 points per game), field-goal shooting (48.8%) and three-point shooting (38.9%) in the SEC.
“Coach Barnes’ teams always play hard,” Oats said. “They’re one of the best teams on defense every year and they dominated us in a big way. We’ve got to go back and find a way to get a little tougher.”
Tennessee has scored 85-plus points in three consecutive games for the first time in league play in nearly 46 years, since the 1977-78 team.
A big part of that has been Northern Colorado transfer Dalton Knecht, who has scored 25 or more points in four consecutive games to become the fifth SEC player in the last 14 seasons to accomplish the feat.
Knecht is now in the company of Auburn’s Chris Denson (2014), Georgia’s J.J. Frazier (2017), Arkansas’ Mason Jones (2020) and LSU’s Cameron Thomas (2020-21) as the only SEC players to hit that mark.
Knecht, selected as the SEC Player of the Week on Monday, has 128 points in his four-game hot streak, the second-best four game total among SEC players in the last 15 seasons to Jones’ 129 points.
Knecht has made 21 consecutive free-throw attempts dating back three games after going 9 of 9 in a win over Florida and 8 of 8 in Saturday’s rout of Alabama.
Big Z plus
Kentucky received an immediate benefit from the NCAA’s eligibility clearance of 7-2 Zvonimir Ivisic on Saturday.
The Croatian sensation, known as Big Z by Kentucky fans, had 13 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocked shots, 2 assists and 2 steals as Kentucky notched a 105-96 win over Georgia at Rupp Arena.
Ivisic was cleared by the NCAA after an inquiry into his amateur status that took months.
Ivisic blocked a shot on his first defensive series and the Wildcats had an 11-0 run during his first stint of 2:43 early in the game. Kentucky outscored the Bulldogs 24-2 in his first two shifts.
Guard Adou Thiero, who has missed six consecutive games with a back problem, is on course to return soon, Coach John Calipri said.
Kentucky, the NCAA scoring leader with 91.6 points per game, has scored 85 points in eight consecutive games, the first time the Wildcats have done that since the 2016-17 season.
The Wildcats held a 96-68 lead on Georgia with 7:55 remaining, on course for a 120-point night, before the Bulldogs closed with a 28-9 run.
Going deep
Auburn’s trip to sole possession of first place in the SEC is based on a lot of factors, like hot shooting, defense and rebounding, while also possibly having the deepest roster in Division I.
The Tigers’ second unit, dubbed “KD and the Sunshine Band” with point guard KD Johnson as its spark, triggered a 14-0 run in the second half that gave Auburn a 31-point lead in its 82-59 rout of Ole Miss on Saturday.
Auburn has won its five conference games by an average of 19.2 points per game.
Coach Bruce Pearl is doing the damage with a deep bench. Auburn had 11 players log 10 or more minutes against Ole Miss.
Falling out
Ole Miss fell out of the top 25 following an 89-80 loss at LSU and an 82-59 setback at Auburn last week.
The Rebels had more offensive rebounds (16) than defensive boards (14) and outrebunded the Tigers 30-29 overall, but Auburn won 22-17 in second-chance points in the first-ever meeting between the rivals as ranked teams.
LSU also had a lengthy wait to get one of its potential standouts in the lineup. The NCAA cleared 6-foot guard Jalen Cook on Dec. 16 and the Tigers are 4-2 with the Walker, La., native available.
Cook began his career with LSU for the 2020-21 season before transferring to Tulane and earning All-American Athletic Conference status for the next two years. He scored 28 points in a 77-69 win over Vanderbilt and 16 points, including 7 of 7 at the free-throw line, in an 89-80 win over Ole Miss.
Toughest twos
Vanderbilt is not only the lowest-rated team in the SEC in the NCAA’s Net Rankings, it also looks set to have the most formidable slate of twice-played opponents in conference action.
Coach Jerry Stackhouse’s fifth edition of the Commodores has two games each against Auburn, Tennessee and Kentucky, the three highest-ranked teams in the SEC, as well as Florida and LSU. Those teams are a combined 18-7 in conference games thus far.
On the flip side of that, Florida, LSU and Texas A&M play two games each against two of the three teams — Arkansas, Missouri and Vanderbilt — at the bottom of the league standings. Florida faces Missouri and Vanderbilt twice, the Aggies take on Arkansas and Missouri twice, and LSU faces Arkansas and Vanderbilt twice.
Gamecocks’ tough
South Carolina has lost 13 of its last 17 games against Kentucky, but the Gamecocks should play with confidence at 6 p.m. tonight at home against the Wildcats at Colonial Life Arena.
While the Gamecocks were struggling with just four conference wins in Coach Lamont Paris’ debut last year, they did beat Kentucky 71-68 last season in Rupp Arena.
South Carolina has won 8 of its last 10 games, largely with good ball movement on offense creating desirable shots and great effort and connectivity on defense.
“We’re trying really hard,” Paris said after his team’s win at Arkansas on Saturday. ” I mean really, really hard. In our one-on-one situations trying to follow defensive rules as hard and as best we can.
“I think our commitment to those things was as good as I’ve seen in a long time. So I think we’re communicating. When we’re supposed to switch we switch and when we shouldn’t we don’t switch. … I would say the biggest thing is our effort to do the things that I’ve asked these guys to do could not be higher.”
2nd time round
The first two-time matchup of the conference season was played by LSU and Texas A&M on Saturday. The Aggies managed to return the favor of a home loss to the Tigers.
The reversal in offensive board work between the games was significant as the Aggies enjoyed a 21-6 edge in that department at the Maravich Assembly Center after the Tigers won it 14-13 at Reed Arena on Jan. 6.
“Obviously, they flipped the script on us from the first matchup where we were 18-3 in second-chance points in our favor,” LSU Coach Matt McMahon said. “Today, 27-0 was obviously the difference in the game.”
For some reason, the Alabama players held a circular pre-game huddle bizarrely at the free throw line on the Tennessee end of the court on Saturday. The huddle was held with Tennessee players all around while Rocky Top was being played.
Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht and Kentucky’s D.J. Wagner were chosen as the SEC Players of the Week by the league office on Monday.
Knecht, a 6-6 fifth-year player from Thornton, Colo., averaged 32 points, 6 rebounds and 1.5 assists, including a career-high 39 points against Florida, in a pair of Vols’ wins last week.
Wagner was named the SEC Freshman of the Week for the third time this season after the 6-4 guard from Camden, N.J. averaged 12.5 points, 6 assists, 2 rebounds and 1 steal in wins over Mississippi State and Georgia. Wagner had a career-high 10 assists to go along with 18 points against Georgia.
