The Tennessee Volunteers welcomed the Auburn Tigers to town on Saturday night.
East Tennessee is blanketed with snow, but that didn’t stop a solid crowd from showing up at Food City Center. The crowd was into the game from the jump, as a J.P. Estrella layup and a Ja’Kobi Gillespie three-pointer put the Vols out to an early 5-0 lead.
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Even without big man Felix Okpara for this one, the Vols dominated on the glass. Estrella, Jaylen Carey, and DeWayne Brown II all stepped up in a big way and combined for 17 boards in the game.
All-in-all, it was a complete team win for the Vols, and Steven Pearl’s “homecoming” was ruined. The Vols escaped with a 77-69 victory and improved to 5-3 in SEC play.
Now, let’s identify three takeaways from this SEC battle.
No Okpara, No Problem
Auburn big man Keyshawn Hall entered this game averaging over seven rebounds per game. You’d think without Okpara to bang down low, Hall would have dominated in this one.
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However, as mentioned above, the Vols’ bigs stepped up in a big way. Hall ended with just four rebounds, and the Vols outscored the Tigers in the paint as well. Obviously, it will be huge to get Okpara back, but it was nice to see that the absence of one starter won’t sink the team in league play.
Free Throw Woes Disappear for a Night
Much has been made about the Vols’ struggles from the charity stripe this season. The team has routinely shot around 60% on free throws during SEC play, but they had their best performance so far on Saturday night.
The team was 25-of-31 on free throws against the Tigers, good for 81%. Nate Ament was particularly impressive, hitting 12 of his 15 free throws. Gillespie and Amari Evans were perfect from the line while Brown was 4-of-5 and Carey was 3-of-4.
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Free throw shooting makes all the difference in tight SEC games. If the team perhaps found something out and can continue to hit free throws, don’t count them out in any game.
Nate Ament Still Scores 20 on an Off Night
Watching this game, it really didn’t feel like Nate Ament was having a great game by any means. The star freshman shot just 4-of-16 from the field and 2-of-6 from deep.
However, Ament played smart and did a lot of things that don’t show up in the box score. His off-ball movement was nice, as was his help defense. Ament also got to the line to shoot a whopping 15 free throwns. As mentioned above, his 12 free throw makes ended up being a huge difference in this game and allowed him to still break 20 points.
This game is a perfect example of how Ament still impacts winning even if his shots aren’t falling.
