Tennessee Basketball: Vols clinch share of regular season title

The Tennessee Volunteers clinched a share of the SEC regular-season title with their win over the Georgia Bulldogs last night.

Tennessee captured their first SEC regular-season title since 2008 with their 66-61 win over the Georgia Bulldogs last night on Senior Night. The Volunteers honored lone senior, James Daniel III.  The Volunteers won a share of the SEC title after they were picked to finish 13th in the SEC by “experts”.

Last night’s win put the Volunteers record at 23-7 and a 13-5 record in the SEC. That is an impressive feat for the Volunteers considering they started off 0-2 in SEC play.

Tennessee will share the title with the Auburn Tigers, who also finished 13-5 under Bruce Pearl. Auburn will still have the #1 seed in the SEC Tournament this week in St. Louis because of their win against Tennessee earlier in the year. The Volunteers will be the #2 seed, playing the winner of the #7 Mississippi State vs #10 LSU game.

Game Recap

Both teams came out firing to start the game off. The 1st half was pretty high scoring and also featured a ton of foul calls. Both Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield got in early foul trouble. Georgia went on a little run before the end of the 1st half to increase their lead to 11. The Volunteers closed out the half with a Jordan Bone three-pointer to close the margin to eight points before halftime.

Like the Volunteers defense for much of the year, they swarmed on the Bulldogs in the 2nd half. Yante Maten, who had 12 points in the 1st half, was held to just six points in the 2nd half. The Volunteers defense held Georgia to just 19 points in the 2nd half after allowing 42 in the 1st half. Tennessee held Georgia without a bucket for almost seven minutes, as Tennessee was able to come back after their halftime deficit.

Both teams continued to trade leads throughout the rest of the game. Williams continued to be called for weak fouls and ended up fouling out with a little under four minutes left in the game.

The Volunteers weren’t done yet, as Schofield stepped up huge in the last few minutes, making a clutch jumper with just 17 seconds left to increase the Volunteers lead to three points. Schofield also made two free throws with under a second left in the game to put the icing on the cake and help secure the Volunteers first SEC regular-season title in years.

Schofield came up clutch yet again for the Volunteers as he led the team with 23 points. He put up 25, 24, and 23 points in the Volunteers last three games, all Volunteer wins. Despite Williams being in foul trouble for a good amount of the night, he had 22 points.

Jordan Bone had a few clutch threes in the 1st half. Lamonte Turner didn’t score until the 2nd half but made three clutch three-pointers, as Thompson Boling Arena went crazy.

The SEC Tournament begins on Wednesday in St. Louis, but Tennessee will not play until Friday, as they have a double bye. Tennessee will play the winner of the Mississippi State-LSU game at 6 PM Central on Friday.