March Madness: Three takeaways from Tennessee Vols’ blowout win vs. Longwood Lancers

It was a much better first March Madness game for Tennessee basketball than last year and a much easier time than the Vols’ last NCAA Tournament Round of 64 matchup against the Big South Champions. Feeling cheated by being a No. 3 seed after winning the SEC Tournament, dominated their first game.

Rick Barnes’ team beat Griff Aldrich’s Longwood Lancers 88-56. They never trailed. Longwood kept it close early, never trailing by more than four points the first 10 minutes. However, up 20-17, the Vols went on a 9-0 run to take control. They then closed the first half on a 13-0 run to go up 54-29 and never led by less than 20 after that.

Rocky Top improves to 27-7 overall and will next face the Michigan Wolverines in the NCAA Round of 32 on Saturday. Longwood, who was a No. 14 seed, finishes the regular season 26-7. Here are three things we learned from the Vols’ first March Madness victory.

1. Size was too much early.

Heading into the game, the Vols’ key to avoiding an upset was pounding it inside. Even without Olivier Nkamhoua, UT was too big for Longwood, who didn’t have anybody over 6’7″ in their rotation. Barnes rightly took advantage to give the Vols control.

John Fulkerson scored six straight points early on and had 10 before the 12-minute mark in the first half. He finished the game with 15 points and had 13 at halftime. Brandon Huntley-Hatfield added seven, and Uros Plavsic added four. Josiah-Jordan James scored six of his 17 points down low and had nine boards. UT won 32-24 on the boards as well. This was the difference.

2. Three-point shooting remains red-hot.

Honestly, you wish the Vols could have saved this for a more necessary game deeper into March Madness. However, they managed to make this a blowout with their outside shooting, which added to their inside dominance. UT went an incredible 14-of-24 from beyond the arc. Santiago Vescovi was amazing, going 6-of-8 from outside with a team-leading 18 points.

James was 3-of-6 from three, and Kennedy Chandler was 3-of-4 from outside with 13 points. Zakai Zeigler was 2-of-4 from beyond the arc with 10 points. This shooting combined with the inside game is how UT could have 29 assists to just 12 turnovers. Vescovi had seven assists, Zeigler had six, Chandler had five and Victor Bailey Jr. had four.

3. Suffocating defense continues.

For the third straight game, a team had an uncharacteristically bad shooting game against the Vols from three. Longwood lives and dies from outside, but they were just 7-of-22 from beyond the arc, below their average. Make no mistake, this has everything to do with the Vols’ defense.

Rocky Top forced 16 turnovers on the day and had an amazing 13 steals. Yes, they had more steals than turnovers on their own. Chandler and Vescovi had four steals each, and Plavsic had two. Add in a block from James, and this is why the Vols were able to easily advance in March Madness to the NCAA Tournament Round of 32.