Observations from Tennessee’s Win Over UT Martin

By Tucker Harlin

Thanksgiving was on the minds of just about everyone in Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center, including both the Vols and Skyhawks.

#7 Tennessee (7-0) defeated UT Martin (2-5) 78-35 Wednesday to exit November undefeated. As the score indicates, the Vols were too much for a struggling Skyhawks offense while Tennessee’s offense looked disinterested, shooting an ugly 27% from three.

There isn’t much for us to gain or learn from these buy games, so I’ll keep my observations short and sweet this time around.

FIRST HALF

Neither team appeared locked in during the opening half.

Chaz Lanier, Zakai Zeigler, and Igor Milicic all hit threes in the first several minutes, but much of the early offense featured long, drawn out, empty possessions.

Lanier led the scoring with 11 points while Milicic did the next most with seven points.

While the offense didn’t see as many shots go down as desired, the defensive intensity was where it needed to be. Josu Grullon scored 10 for the Skyhawks, but his best offense was low percentage turnaround threes as the shot clock expired.

Numerous shot clock violations comprised the 10 turnovers the Skyhawks gave away.

SECOND HALF

Felix Okpara became increasingly involved in the second half scoring, naturally doing it all around the rim. Zakai Zeigler’s three later in the half also got him across the double-digit threshold.

Bishop Boswell played six minutes in the second half and checked in with 14:23 to play. The final numbers for Boswell were a rebound and a pair of assists, one of which was to Darlinstone Dubar late in the second half.

One of the more fascinating aspects of this game relates to the walk-ons.

Tennessee walk-on guard Grant Hurst began his college basketball career at UT Martin before transferring to Tennessee a season ago. The walk-ons checked in with just over two minutes to play, and Hurst scored a bucket at the rim.