Dick Vitale raves over Tennessee star players in win over Duke

Tennessee cruised to a strong 65-52 victory over Duke in the Round of 32 on Saturday to advance to the Sweet 16. In the win, Tennessee’s best players stepped up to lead the charge offensively, and ESPN’s Dick Vitale took notice.

Olivier Nkamhoua led the way offensively, finishing as the game’s leading scorer with 27 points on 10-for-13 shooting, in addition to 3-for-4 beyond the arc. Santiago Vescovi didn’t have as much of a monster game, but he was still valuable with 14 points behind 4-for-11 shooting from the field and 4-for-eight from three-point range.

Nkamhoua and Vescovi leading the way for Tennessee offensively is nothing new for the Vols. Vescovi leads the team on the season with 12.7 points per game, while Nkamhoua ranks second with 11.0 points.

“(Olivier) Nkamhoua came up big. He was sensational,” Vitale said of Tennessee on SportsCenter Sunday morning. “Again, 27 points, when Duke went to the zone, he went into the gaps, the seams, caught the ball, made big shots, and he did that also — I had a game earlier this year when they played Texas in a big game. And he also had 27 in that game. So, he really responds, it seems, at the big moments.”

Vitale impressed by Tennessee’s performance without Zakai Zeigler

Tennessee isn’t known for being an offensive juggernaut by any means. The Vols are a defensive-minded team that can do enough offensively to make things extremely tough on the opposition. Even reaching that feat offensively has been challenging without star guard Zakai Zeigler, who tore his ACL and will not play for the rest of the season.

But Vitale still saw a lot to like about Tennessee after making it out of the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend.

“A great win for Rick Barnes, for the fact he played without (Zakai) Ziegler,” added Vitale. “These kids really got it done. (Santiago) Vescovi was terrific as well. Can’t absolutely forget what he did to start that game. He made some big plays. Tennessee, defensively very tough. Now they await the winner of FDU and Florida Atlantic, I think that’ll be Florida Atlantic.”

16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson and 9-seed Florida Atlantic face off Sunday evening to determine Tennessee’s opponent in the Sweet 16. Fairleigh Dickinson beat one-seeded Purdue in the opening round, while Florida Atlantic beat 8-seeded Memphis.

The Sweet 16 matchup between Tennessee and either FDU or FAU will be on Thursday.