Tennessee Basketball, fresh off of an 80-64 win over Gardner-Webb, travels to Kentucky to face the Louisville Cardinals.
No. 12 Tennessee basketball will travel to the KFC Yum! Center to face a major non-conference opponent, the Louisville Cardinals. In the program’s history, Tennessee’s record versus Louisville is 8–12. Their most recent matchup was in 2018, Barnes’ third year of coaching Rocky Top, where the Volunteers came out on top 92-81.
General Information:
Teams: Tennessee (1-0) and Lousiville (1-0)
Tip-Off: 12 p.m. EST
Watch: ACC Network
What to know about Louisville:
This year, Louisville began its new era under first-year coach Pat Kelsey earlier this week, dominating Morehead State to a win of 93-45. Kelsey made key reparations to the team after the Cardinals went 8-24 in their final year under head coach Kenny Payne.
On Monday against Morehead State, Louisville controlled the game in every way. Three starters: senior guard J’Vonne Hadley with 15, sophomore forward James Scott with 12, and senior guard Terrance Edwards Jr. with 12, ended with double digits as leading scorers. Pryor, a 6’10 225-pound senior forward, came off the bench to add 18. Pryor also had a game-high 12 rebounds and 3 steals. He will be a great test of Tennessee’s frontcourt.
Latest on Tennessee Basketball:
Tennessee basketball showed great promise in Monday’s 80-64 win over Gardner-Webb.
Chaz Lanier looked to be the real deal after struggling in the team’s exhibition game vs. Indiana. Lanier led the team with 18 points in 26 minutes while shooting 7-12 from the field and 4-6 from three. Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack, and Jordan Gainey also held their scoring 13, 10, and 16.
Defense leading to turnovers seemed to be the key to success for Tennessee basketball.
The Volunteers played high-pressure defense all game which led to the Runnin’ Bulldogs committing 15 turnovers. Of those turnovers, the Volunteers stole the ball 9 times with Jahmai Mashack leading the way with his career high of 4.
The turnovers led to fast break points as they outscored Gardner-Webb 13-0 in that category. They will look to speed Louisville’s offense up and force them into committing mistakes.
Two areas Tennessee basketball will look to improve on in the second game of the season are rebounding and protecting the paint. Tennessee lost the rebounding battle to Gardner-Webb 32-29 and scarcely won the points in the paint battle 38-34. With Lousiville’s bigs having more size and strength than Gardner-Webb’s bigs, it will be even more of a test for Tennessee’s frontcourt.
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Man Oh Man I Think UT Has Scored A Great Commentator in This #1. I Look Forward to more stats And dissection of the game.