Vols hold off Vandy 67-62
KNOXVILLE — Rick Barnes was not worried about Jordan Bowden.
Sure, Bowden was struggling, having made just one of 10 shots from 3-point range in Tennessee’s previous two games. But Barnes had not seen warning signs of a player with lost confidence.
“I would say a guy is in a slump when he won’t take the shots he should take,” the Volunteers’ coach said Monday. “That’s when you know he’s doubting himself.”
The doubt could have finally crept in when Bowden missed two free throws in the first minute of Tennessee’s game against Vanderbilt on Tuesday night. Instead, the sophomore guard kept shooting.
The 22nd-ranked Vols needed every bit of Bowden’s rediscovered 3-point precision to withstand a furious rally from Vanderbilt and escape with a 67-62 win in front of 14,127 at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Bowden led Tennessee with 19 points on 5-of-7 shooting from beyond the arc. His fourth 3-pointer gave Tennessee a 37-17 lead with 18:12 remaining — just as Riley LaChance came alive.
Vanderbilt’s senior guard scored all 25 of his points in the second half and willed the Commodores to within two points in the game’s final two minutes. A 3-pointer by Lamonte Turner with 1:03 remaining put the Vols ahead 63-58. Bowden helped seal the victory with a layup a few moments later after the Vols forced a rare LaChance miss.
LaChance made nine of 14 shots in the second half.
“Once he got a couple to go down, and the way he was making them, as a coach you kind of just want to get out of the way,” Vanderbilt coach Bryce Drew said.
The strategy of riding LaChance nearly led to an unlikely victory for the Commodores (7-13, 2-6 SEC) as
they sought the program’s fourth straight win in Knoxville. Instead, Tennessee (14-5, 5-3) survived for its fifth win in its last six games and a season sweep of Vanderbilt.
Coming off of a win over South Carolina that Barnes deemed one of the team’s best defensive games of the season, the Vols’ second-half defense against Vanderbilt left the third-year Tennessee coach frustrated with his team’s lack of consistency as it prepares to play at Iowa State on Saturday in a non-league game.
“Who are we going to be?” Barnes said. “Are we going to be a team that’s going to hang our identity on the defensive end and play every single possession to the best of our ability? You can’t do that if you don’t block out and finish the possession.”
The closer-than-preferred Vanderbilt game did reveal at least one of Tennessee’s positive characteristics to Barnes: grit.
“Like tonight after squandering a big lead, you find a way to win the game,” he said. “We didn’t do those things last year. The word I want to see is consistency. What are we going to get? We’re talking more of a mindset probably as much as anything.”
After scoring a career-high 37 points in Tennessee’s 92-84 win over Vanderbilt two weeks ago, Grant Williams embodied grit as he scored 18 in the rematch. All 11 of his second-half points came at the free-throw line as the result of gruff play in the post.
But as Vanderbilt swarmed Williams early and Admiral Schofield struggled to find a groove offensively, it was Bowden who built Tennessee’s lead and pushed Drew to call timeouts.
Bowden hit a 3 in transition off a Jordan Bone assist with 12:04 left in the first half to put the Vols up 11-7. Vanderbilt took an immediate timeout.
Later in the half, Bowden completed a four-point play to make Tennessee’s lead 22-13. He promptly hit another 3 to extend the lead to 25-13. Drew called another timeout. Vanderbilt went to a zone defense out of the timeout, but Tennessee closed the half on a 7-2 run against the zone and took a 32-15 lead to the break.
Vanderbilt’s offense was struggling without its second-leading scorer, Matthew Fisher-Davis, who did not play for a third straight game and will miss the rest of the season. Commodores freshman guard Saben Lee, who scored 21 points in the teams’ first meeting, picked up his fourth foul with 12:58 remaining and left the game. He went scoreless in 20 minutes of action.
LaChance and senior Jeff Roberson, who contributed 21 points, scored all but but 16 of Vanderbilt’s points.
After Williams and Schofield combined for 59 points in Tennessee’s earlier win over Vanderbilt, the Commodores became just the second team all season to keep Schofield out of double digits.
Bowden filled the void for Tennessee.
As the 6-5 sharpshooter ran back on defense after his first make of the night, he tilted his head and appeared to take a sigh of relief.
“I was just like, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ after seeing that first one go in and finally getting out of that, I guess, slump,” Bowden said. “Just seeing that first one go in was really big for me.”