Tennessee entered Saturday night looking for their seventh straight win in SEC play, welcoming in-state rival Vanderbilt to town for their second meeting of the season. The Commodores gave the Volunteers all they could handle last month in Nashville, and they did so again tonight.
Tennessee’s balanced offense started hot, spreading the ball around between Josiah-Jordan James, Santiago Vescovi, Zakai Zeigler and John Fulkerson. Rick Barnes once again gave Brandon Huntley-Hatfield the nod in place of Olivier Nkamhoua, who is out for the season with an ankle injury.
Huntley-Hatfield responded with the first bucket of the game, before giving way to Fulkerson, who had a strong first half.