Vols Brace For Improved South Carolina Basketball Team
(utsports.com) KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The fifth-ranked Tennessee men’s basketball team returns home to take on South Carolina Tuesday night at Food City Center. Tipoff is slated for 6:30 p.m. ET.
Fans can catch Tuesday’s game between the Vols (15-4, 5-1 SEC) and Gamecocks (17-3, 5-2 SEC) on SEC Network. Tom Hart (play-by-play), Dane Bradshaw (analyst) and Alyssa Lang (reporter) will have the call.Tennessee roared back from a nine-point deficit late in the first half to defeat Vanderbilt, 75-62, Saturday night at Memorial Gymnasium. Fifth-year guard Dalton Knecht scored a game-best 32 points, his third time reaching that number in a four-game span, to lead fifth-ranked Tennessee to its 12th win over the in-state foe Commodores in the teams’ last 13 matchups.THE MATCHUP• The average margin of victory for the Volunteers in their five-game series winning streak is 29.4 ppg, with each decision by 20-plus.• Tennessee is 10-1 in its last 11 matchups with South Carolina, a stretch that dates back to 1/20/18. During that 11-game span, the Volunteers have been ranked nine times, posting a 9-0 record in those contests.• The Volunteers won both games last year against South Carolina by 40-plus points. They first claimed an 85-42 road victory on 1/7/23, with the 43-point margin the largest in series history. UT followed that with an 85-45 home decision on 2/25/23. In total, the Vols outscored the Gamecocks by 83 points on the season, 170-87.• South Carolina was picked No. 14 in the SEC preseason poll after going 11-21 (4-14) last year, but already has six more total victories and one more SEC win than it had in all of 2022-23.• Junior guard Meechie Johnson, a member of the Lute Olson Award Midseason Watch List, leads the Gamecocks in scoring at 15.7 ppg.NEWS & NOTES• South Carolina is Tennessee’s second foe this season that is atop the AP’s “receiving votes” section, placing No. 26 in the polling, joining Wisconsin (11/10/23).• UT is 5-1 in SEC play for the second straight season. Per Elias Sports Bureau, this is the sixth time UT has achieved that feat, including the first since 1975-76 (10-1) and 1976-77 (10-0). The other times it happened were 1966-68, 1947-49, 1944-46 and 1941-43.• The Volunteers are in the AP top five for the third consecutive week. This is the third time in program history they have achieved that feat, joining an 11- week stretch in 2018-19 and a six- week span in 2007-08.• Tennessee, per KenPom, has played the sixth-hardest strength of schedule in the country. It also has the sixth-best strength of record in the nation, per ESPN.• Over the last two games, Jordan Gainey (25) and Santiago Vescovi (22) have combined for 47 points. In UT’s first four SEC contests, Gainey (three) and Vescovi (21) had 24 total points.DOMINANT DK• Dalton Knecht, the SEC’s active career PPG leader (15.47), has 160 points in the last five games, the first such stretch by a Power Six player since Marquette’s Markus Howard in Jan. 2020 and the only one by an SEC player in at least the last 19 years (2005-24).• Knecht is averaging 17.6 points per half over the last nine frames, with 158 total in that span. He had 11-plus in eight of the nine, 16-plus in seven and 20-plus in four.• Per Elias Sports Bureau, the last Power Six player with 32-plus points thrice in a four-game stretch prior to Knecht was Iowa’s Luka Garza from Nov. 27- Dec. 10, 2020, while the last SEC player to to achieve the feat was Tennessee’s Chris Lofton from Dec. 6-23, 2006.• Knecht is just the fifth SEC player in the last 14 years (2010-24) with four 32-point games in a single season, alongside Vanderbilt’s Scotty Pippen Jr. (five in 2021-22), Arkansas’ Mason Jones (seven in 2019-20), Ole Miss’ Breein Tyree (2019-20) and Kentucky’s Malik Monk (2016-17).QUALITY COMPANY• Tennessee, Arizona, Kansas and Purdue are the only four teams to earn an AP top-five ranking in each of the past three seasons (2021-24).• In addition, Tennessee, Baylor, Houston and Kansas are the only four schools ranked in the AP top six each of the past four years (2020-24).• UT is one of only six teams to reach the AP top six in four of the last six seasons (2018-24), joining Baylor, Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas (all six) and Kentucky. Those are six of the only 10 schools in the AP top five in at least four of the past six years, alongside Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina and Virginia.• The Vols are one of only 12 teams to earn an AP top- two ranking in at least two of the past six seasons. The others are Arizona, Baylor (three), Connecticut, Duke (four), Gonzaga (five), Kansas (four), Kentucky, Michigan, Purdue, UCLA and Virginia.
