Basketball Vols Keep the Herd From Rolling With a Second Half Surge

The Tennessee Volunteers (2-1) escaped a near upset against the Marshall Thundering Herd (0-1) on Thursday night with a 84 to 74 victory.

Coming off a 69-67 loss to Georgia Tech, the Vols were favored by double digits against a Herd team playing their first game of the season.

The Vols started out hot from behind the line with guard Detrick Mostella knocking down a corner three in the opening seconds of the game. The shots continued to fall with seniors Armani Moore and Devon Baulkman adding a three each. The Vols went into the first media timeout with a 13 to 9 lead, and were 3-for-5 from behind the arc.

The Vols cooled down quickly however, and did not not have a single three for the remainder of the first half. Marshall took advantage of the Vols’ shooting woes and led for the majority of the half.

Marshall forward James Kelly proved to be too much size for the small Volunteer lineup going into the half with 10 points and 8 rebounds, and guard Justin Edmonds picked up where the Vols left off going 3-for-6 from behind the three-point line. Marshall went into the half with a 38 to 35 lead.

One player noticeably not playing up to par at this point was senior guard Kevin Punter. Punter’s only two points came at the free throw line in the last twenty seconds of play in the first half, as he went 0-4 from the field.

Punter’s woes continued early on in the second half along with the rest of the guys in white and orange.

The Thundering Herd came out of the break rolling into a 13-0 run to put the Herd up 51 to 35, which had the home crowd on edge in Knoxville.

Junior guard Robert Hubs III finally stopped the bleeding, and helped lead the Vols to a 19-2 run to take the lead; he did all of this after missing practice

“Maybe we shouldn’t practice him. Who knows,” said coach Rick Barnes, “he’s done a pretty good job without practice.”

Once regaining the lead, the Vols never looked back, led by a previously struggling Punter who had 17 points in the second half.

” I thought he came out, he had great pace,” said Barnes “I thought he had his head up looking around. I thought he made some nice passes. He got in the lane with it.”

Punter finished the game with 19 points and four assists as the Vols secured their second win of the season, and more to work on.

“We have such a small room for error,” said Barnes, “I think right now guys are still trying to figure out what they want to do as opposed to what we have to do as a team to win consistently.”

The Vols next game comes against the Gardner-Webb Bulldogs on the SEC Network Sunday at noon.