Tennessee basketball: Vols get back on track with 83-66 win over West Virginia

The No.1 Tennessee basketball team continued their winning streak by dominating West Virginia. Here are three takeaways from the game.

Two scares in a row will have people questioning what in the world is going on, even though both games ended up wins for Tennessee basketball. Then it was West Virginia’s turn, could they be the team that pulled the upset?

The Mountaineers jumped out to a 19-7 lead in the first nine minutes. West Virginia hit four out of their first seven attempts from deep, and it was beginning to look like another game that would come down to the wire.

After starting a dreadful 1-for-7 from the floor, including 0-for-4 from the three-point line, Tennessee began to turn things around. Alexander made a jumper; Turner drained a deep three, Schofield saw a layup fall and the Vols were right back in it. In fact, they took a ten point lead into halftime and never looked back.

Tennessee scored 52 points in the second half to pull out to a 17 point win. Here are three takeaways from the game.

1. Vols still struggled to guard the three-point shot

All Vol fans could do was throw their hands up, turn to their friends and ask, “how can this team not guard the three-point jumper?” Or simply say, “not again.”

In the previous three games against Vanderbilt, Alabama, and Arkansas, Tennessee gave up ten three-point shots in each game. Vanderbilt made 47.6 percent of their attempts; it felt as if they couldn’t miss.

West Virginia made four of their first seven attempts from deep which helped them get out to a twelve point lead.

Tennessee did buckle down eventually, only allowing four more made three’s throughout the rest of the game. However, the Mountaineers still shot close to 40 percent from deep, and that’s with missing a lot of open shots.

2. Schofield had a quiet double-double

Admiral Schofield has been a machine this season averaging 16.7 points per game. However, the past two games he’s been turned off. He shot a combined 6-for-26 (23 percent) from the floor and 1-for-10 (ten percent) from deep against Alabama and Vanderbilt. The shooting slump begged the question if someone could sneak over to campus and flip his switch back to the on position.

While he didn’t shoot particularly well, just 31 percent from the floor, including 1-for-5 from deep, Schofield poured in 14 points. In 31 minutes of action, Schofield also added ten rebounds for his third double-double of the season.

3. Turner showed out from the starting lineup

Lamonte Turner received his first start in place of Yves Pons in what seems like forever, and he didn’t disappoint. The junior guard who is usually a scoring threat off the bench, scored a game-high 23 points on 8-for-10 from the floor, including 3-for-5 from deep.

Turner played great all game; He added five assists to just one turnover. However, as great as he played, the Vols only received 16 points off the bench, which 15 came from Jordan Bowden.

The Vols are back in action Tuesday night for a 6:30 tip against the South Carolina Gamecocks in Columbia. You can watch and stream the game on SEC Network.