KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee covered just about every aspect of basketball Wednesday night.
Good. Bad. Ugly.
And, at times, downright atrocious.
The Vols blew most of a 15-point second-half lead before finding their footing down the stretch to defeat South Carolina, 69-57, before a sub-par crowd of 14,784 at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Trae Golden’s putback gave Tennessee (12-12, 4-5) a 51-36 lead with 12:37 left in the game, but that was the Vols’ last field goal for five-plus minutes.
Shooting wasn’t necessarily a problem for the Vols, who hit 19 of 38 field goals (50 percent) against South Carolina’s matchup zone.
However, the 19 made field goals were the fewest for a Tennessee team since an 18-for-33 performance in a 74-64 loss to Kentucky on Feb. 25, 1997.
“The one thing with the matchup,” Tennessee coach Cuonzo Martin said, “is you have to get the guys moving. It can’t be just one or two passes. It’s got to the four, five or six passes, go inside or make the extra pass to the wing or the corner. I thought we did a good job of that.”
The Southeastern Conference cellar-dwelling Gamecocks (9-14, 1-8), held to 33.9 percent shooting (19 of 56), went on a 13-5 run and cut their deficit to 54-50 with 6:36 and put a scare into the Vols.
When Bruce Ellington put up a wild, on-the-run shot to the right of the lane while under defensive duress from Golden and converted the free throw, Tennessee was on the good side of a shaky 58-55 lead with 4:07 remaining.
From there, Tennessee, which played without freshman Jarnell Stokes due to a sprained hand, closed out the Gamecocks with a 10-2 spurt to get their 10th straight win over South Carolina.
Skylar McBee led the Vols with a career-high 18 points while Golden had 14 and Jeronne Maymon 12. Those three players combined to hit 19 of 20 free throws and the Vols as a team went 21-for-26 (80.8 percent) from the line.
“He’s a good ballplayer,” Martin said of McBee. “He’s just a guy who makes shots. I think other guys make shots, but he’s built to shoot the ball.”
Senior Cameron Tatum scored six points on two 3-pointers and became the 44th player in Tennessee history to crack the 1,000-point barrier.
Kenny Hall added 10 rebounds and three blocks for the Vols, who have won 22 of the last 29 games against South Carolina.
“I thought Kenny played a tremendous game,” Martin said. “I thought he was special on the defensive side of the ball, executing, switching with guards. I thought he came ready to play.”
Ellington had 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting to lead the Gamecocks. Damien Leonard and Brenton Williams each scored 11.
Next up for Tennessee is No. 8 Florida in Gainesville on Saturday at 4 p.m. That same day South Carolina, which has lost four in a row, will be at Arkansas for a 1:30 p.m. contest.
As was the case with Georgia on Saturday, South Carolina took it to the Vols right out of the gate. The Gamecocks were up 18-15 on Leonard’s 3 from the right wing.
But Tennessee scored six of the eight points and went up 21-20 on two Golden free throws. Leonard countered with a 3.
The Vols then gave the partisan crowd something to cheer – they hit four consecutive 3-pointers, three by McBee and one by Tatum with 39 seconds left in the first half – he failed to score in the second half – that gave him exactly 1,000 career points.
“For about 16 minutes we were in great shape (defensively),” South Carolina coach Darrin Horn said. “Then we gave up a barrage of 3s and it completely changed the game for us.”
McBee came back with two free throws to cap a 14-4 run to end the first half and Tennessee was up 35-27, in part because its bench outscored South Carolina, 10-1.
“When you hit one or two your confidence boosts up a little bit and you just them fly,” McBee said of his 3-point binge late in the first half. “You don’t even think about them, and I think that’s what happened.”
That man, Leonard, started the second half with a 3.
Tennessee rattled South Carolina with another 14-4 spurt highlighted by 3s from Golden, McBee and Josh Richardson to give the Vols their biggest lead of the game at 49-34.
The spread was still 15 at 51-36 on Golden’s reverse layup with 12:37 left.
Suddenly, the Vols’ ballhanding went from ugly to horrendous, resulting in three quick turnovers. Passes sailed into space or off the fingertips of various Vols. Jordan McRae added a fourth turnover when he stepped out of bounds in front of the Vols’ bench.
The Vols finished with 14 turnovers, twice as many as the Gamecocks, and three players – Maymon, Tatum and McRae – each had three.
Despite the rash of miscues, Tennessee still had a 54-44 advantage.
As if someone lit a match under the Gamecocks, they hit the Vols with a 13-5 run capped by a Lakeem Jackson dunk, two free throws by Brenton Williams and another one by Cooke.
That spree sliced the Vols’ lead to 54-50 and was handled by players – Williams, Anthony Gill, Cooke, Ellington and Jackson – on the court who had a combined 22 points at that juncture.
“We relaxed, took too many quick shots and allowed them to get to the line, get easy buckets, things like that,” Golden said.
Golden hit a couple of free throws and Richardson drilled a stop-and-pop jumper from the right wing to finish off a fastbreak and the Vols were back out front by 58-50.
But the Gamecocks, who haven’t won in Knoxville since posting a 94-60 decision on Jan. 23, 2002, fought back and trailed by 58-55 before the Vols made got eight free throws in the final 3:51 for the victory. Maymon had one of the free throws to convert a three-point play off an inbounds pass.
BOXSCORE
Tennessee 69, South Carolina 57
South Carolina (9-14)
Malik Cooke 2-6 0-1 9 Damontre Harris 1-7 0-0 2, R.J. Slawson 3-5 2-3 9, Bruce Ellington 5-16 1-1 12, Damien Leonard 4-7 0-0 11, Brenton Williams 3-6 3-5 11, Brian Richadson 0-0 0-0 0, Eric Smith 0-1 0-0 0, Anthony Gill 0-6 1-4 1, Lakeem Jackson 1-2 0-0 2, Carlton Geathers 0-0 0-0 0. Total: 19-56 12-19 57.
Tennessee (12-12)
Kenny Hall 1-2 2-5 4, Jeronne Maymon 3-6 6-7 12, Trae Golden 3-8 7-7 14, Skylar McBee 4-7 6-6 18, Cameron Tatum 2-4 0-1 6, Yemi Makanjuola 0-1 0-0 0, Josh Richardson 3-3 0-0 7, Renaldo Woolridge 0-0 0-0 0, Jordan McRae 3-7 0-0 8. Total: 19-38 21-26 69.
South Carolina 27 30 – 57
Tennessee 35 34 – 69
3-point goals: South Carolina 7-16 (Cooke 0-1, Slawson 1-3, Ellington 1-5, Leonard 3-4, Williams 2-2, Gill 0-1); Tennessee 10-20 (Golden 1-4, Tatum 2-3, McBee 4-7, Richardson 1-1, McRae 2-5).
Fouled out: South Carolina – None; Tennessee – None.
Rebounds: South Carolina 39 (Harris 5, Slawson 5); Tennessee 34 (Hall 10).
Assists: South Carolina 12 (Ellington 6); Tennessee 14 (Golden 4, Tatum 4).
Total fouls: South Carolina 21; Tennessee 18.
Technical fouls: Georgia – None; Tennessee – None.
Attendance: 14,784.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at fleminglrry@aol.com)