Tennessee basketball: Three takeaways from Vols 58-46 win vs. Chattanooga

Ahead of their trip to Florida, Tennessee basketball beat the Chattanooga Mocs to get to 5-0. Here’s what we learned from the Volunteers’ victory.

It wasn’t pretty, but No. 17 ranked Tennessee basketball remained undefeated after beating the Chattanooga Mocs 58-46 Monday night at Thompson-Boling Arena. Now the Vols can get ready to take their 5-0 record down to Niceville, Fla. for the final two rounds of the Emerald Coast Classic, which will involve them facing the 4-1 Florida State Seminoles.

To be able to focus on that matchup, though, UT had to survive against a Chattanooga team that fell to 3-3 with the loss. The Vols had a 10-point lead at halftime, and the Mocs cut it to six points, 38-32 with just over 13 minutes to go in the game in the second half.

So they were never really able to pull away. Nonetheless, Rick Barnes made sure his guys wouldn’t let this one slip away, and they pulled it out. Here are our takeaways from Tennessee basketball’s ugly win Monday night.

1. It was a tale of two halves for John Fulkerson, Jordan Bowden.

Jordan Bowden started the game red-hot, as he had been doing, going five-of-eight from the field and scoring 11 points in the first half. But then he began to fizzle out in the second half, and his red-hot shooting ended. He went one-for-seven in the second half and finished with just 13 points on the night.

But as Bowden fizzled out, John Fulkerson picked up the slack down low. Fulkerson had a couple of bad turnovers in the first half and no points. He didn’t take any shots, though. In the second half, he went four-for-four, and he hit six of nine free throw attempts to finish with 14 points, being aggressive the whole time. Oh, and he had a block.

2. Guards were effective outside of scoring.

Although Bowden finally went cold, he managed to play big with an incredible 12 rebounds and two blocks. He was joined by Josiah-Jordan James, who is still struggling to find his shot after only four points but managed 11 rebounds, four of which were offensive, along with a steal and a blocked shot. Yves Pons slowed down as well, as he only had five points. But he had three blocks.

Lamonte Turner’s three-point shot finally came back, as he was three-of-eight to join Bowden and Fulkerson in double figures and actually lead the team in scoring with 17 points. But he still was four-of-16 from the field overall. His story, though, was 12 assists and just one turnover. He looks better at point guard by the day, and him and Bowden getting double-doubles is very impressive.

3. While offense is becoming a concern, defense remains consistent.

Is it time to start worrying about the offense? It wasn’t there for Tennessee basketball in the first half against the Alabama State Hornets, and now the Vols only scored 58 points against the Chattanooga Mocs. The good news is they only had 10 turnovers, so their issue is simply the fact that the shots aren’t falling.

However, while that happens, defense continues to dominate. UT has held its last two opponents to 46 and 41 points. Chattanooga only had nine turnovers, but the Vols just contested every shot and had seven blocks. Rebounding helped, as they had a 43-30 edge. If your shot’s not falling, you can still defend, rebound and protect the ball. The Vols did all of those things in this game.