1. You take a conference road win any way that you can get them, style points don’t matter and when you consider it’s a cross state rival you know the number in front of the name doesn’t mean much, crazy things happen. The Vols found a way to win a game that really with about 90 seconds left in regulation it looked like we were going to lose, credit to our guys for finding a way to get it done.
2. Grant freaking Williams...that will go down as one of the greatest performances from a Vol in a very long time, and given the fact he’s on the #1 team in the country it’s going to get noticed by A LOT of people, call it his heisman moment if you will. 43pts 8rbds 4blks 10-15fg 23-23ft, that is an absolutely insane stat line, what a performance tonight from GW.
3. Conversely Admiral Schofield had a night he would soon love to forget, however he made a huge basket down the stretch and that shouldn’t be dismissed. He’s in the middle of a bit of a slump, the fact we haven’t lost is a great sign and knowing his work ethic I don’t really worry too much that we won’t see him back to his normal self very soon.
4. Simply put Tennessee hasn’t been very sharp their last 3 games, the good news is they’ve found a way to win but I would say we are pretty lucky to be 3-0 against Florida, Alabama and Vanderbilt given the score late in the game. It’s great that Tennessee has been able to find a way to win those games, but that’s 3 out of 4 games that we haven’t looked nearly as sharp. I’m not saying you have to win by 25 points, but you can look sharp and be in contol of a game and still only win by 10-12 points, Tennessee hasn’t done that in their last couple games.
5. Vanderbilt shoots 50% overall (only 6th time this year, all 5 others were wins), 48% from 3 (only 2 games better, both were wins)...so how did Tennessee win while shooting 47%fg and 25%3pt? Free throws. Obviously Grant Williams was the headline but as a team Tennessee shot 29-32 at the line for 91% and only had 8 turnovers as a team, you’re going to lose a lot of games allowing teams to shoot those percentages, but tonight goes to show that if you take care of the ball and hit free throws you give yourself a great chance.
6. 14pts 7ast 0tos tonight for Jordan Bone, he continues to be really consistent and someone you can rely on to run this team every single night. It wasn’t his greatest performance but he played well against a tough matchup, as did Lamonte Turner and Jordan Bowden imo. Again none of the 3 shot the ball very well but all 3 played pretty good on both ends and really took care of the ball, 14asts and 0tos between the 3 of them.
7. Weeks ago I mentioned looking ahead to our matchup 2/16 at Kentucky and asked if we could possibly run the table until then and head to Rupp at 23-1? Well, just 6 more to go and tonight was 1 of only 3 away games in that run of 7 leading up to UK...Vols took care of business and now have 4 home games and 2 away games (South Carolina & Texas A&M) left on the slate before that marquee matchup...again as we have saw anything can happen but pulling out that win tonight puts Tennessee one step closer to heading to Lexington sitting at #1 in the country and 23-1(11-0) to face the Wildcats.
GBO!!!
