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Tennessee basketball: 3 takeaways from Vols’ 84-53 win vs. High Point

By Caleb Calhoun

NASHVILLE, TN - MARCH 10: Rick Barnes the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers gives instructions to his team during the 67-65 win over the Vanderbilt Commodores during the second round of the SEC Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena on March 10, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
NASHVILLE, TN - MARCH 10: Rick Barnes the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers gives instructions to his team during the 67-65 win over the Vanderbilt Commodores during the second round of the SEC Basketball Tournament at Bridgestone Arena on March 10, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee basketball got its second straight blowout win this year. Here are three takeaways from the Volunteers’ 84-53 win against the High Point Panthers.

After blowing out the Presbyterian Blue Hose Friday night in their official opener, Tennessee basketball followed that up with another blowout victory over a team from the Big South Conference Tuesday. The Vols destroyed the High Point Panthers 84-53.

With the win, Rick Barnes’s team moves to 2-0 on the year. High Point fell to 1-1 after blowing out William & Mary in their opener.

The Vols scored first, but they fell behind 3-2, and the game was tied 7-7 four and a half minutes into the first half. But after that, they went on a 32-0 run to go up 39-7. And they never looked back after that.

This was Tennessee’s last game before heading to The Bahamas to compete in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. They will face the No. 19 ranked Purdue Boilermakers to open that tournament Wednesday, Nov. 22.

Here are three takeaways from Tennessee basketball’s second win of the year.

1. Defense remains dominant.

On Friday, Tennessee basketball held Presbyterian to 14 points in the first half. Well, they one-upped themselves Tuesday and held High Point to 13 points. Rick Barnes’s team is doing everything right in that matter. And it’s not all about forcing turnovers. In fact, in this game, it was more about contesting shots.

Remember, High Point scored 100 points in their opener. So this is a pretty decent offense. But the Vols, while forcing 16 turnovers, mainly dominated by holding them to under 35 percent shooting. And it was actually worse than that, but they took their foot off the gas in the final five minutes and allowed High Point to score 13 points.

2. This team is very unselfish. 

You can attribute this to the development of Jordan Bowden, Jordan Bone and Lamonter Turner, but you can also talk about the additions of the two transfer players. Chris Darrington was solid off the bench. And then there was James Daniel, the real star.

Daniel got 10 assists off the bench and is thriving in Rick Barnes’s system. He spent four years as a scoring guard but looked extremely comfortable as a point guard. With him leading the way, the Vols had impressive enough ball movement to pick up 20 assists. That’s the biggest reason their offense looked so good. However, there is one issue.

3. The Vols need better control with their ball movement.

They move the ball around a lot and are unselfish, which is why they had open looks and made a lot of shots. However, it caused lots of mistakes too. Daniel’s the one exception, as he had no turnovers to go with his 10 assists.

However, while he did score 16 points, Bone had six turnovers. The big men had a few turnovers under the basket as well. Altogether, these guys had 17 turnovers. They dominated, but if you commit 17 turnovers against High Point, you’ve got a lot of work to do. Tennessee basketball won’t beat too many good teams doing that.

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