Rick Barnes discusses balanced scoring effort vs. LSU

No. 6 Tennessee defeated LSU 88-68 at home on Saturday and has now won six of its last seven conference games.

Four players scored in double figures for the Volunteers, including a 27-point game from standout Dalton Knecht. He also hauled in seven boards and assisted on six passes during the blowout victory. As his offense continues to hone itself on the court, Vols head coach Rick Barnes explained what impressed him the most out of his squad’s hot night.

“Obviously, you would love to bottle the first half. I mean, we were terrific in the first half. We really did do a lot of really good things,” Barnes said postgame. “Obviously, when the ball is going in like that, it all looks good, but I thought we were good in the second half. But Matt (McMahon) does a great job. I told the guys (LSU is) going to push and get back. They’re too good a team, they played too good a schedule.

“I thought our shot selection wasn’t as good in the second half. And, missing free throws, if you missed two free throws, those turn into turnovers and we gave them, or they got too wide open threes. And again, when those happened early in the possession, it is transition defense. And as much as we’ve harped about that, if you break it down to one thing, it was just the second-chance points, the offensive glass. And we got to fix that in a hurry.” 

Luckily for the Vols, their offensive barrage was too much for LSU’s extra possessions. Aside from Knecht, junior guard Jordan Gainey was the team’s leading scorer with 18 points off the bench. He came into the game averaging 7.7 points per game. Zakai Zeigler and Jonas Aidoo also scored in double figures for the Volunteers.

The victory is now the seventh time in Tennessee’s last eight wins that the Vols have scored at least 85 points. They improve to 7-2 in SEC play and sit just outside the three-way logjam for first place in the current conference standings.

They’ll hope to continue this trend this weekend when they travel to College Station to take on Texas A&M on Saturday. The opening tip is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET live on ESPN. After that, the Vols remain on the road to battle a struggling Arkansas in Fayetteville before returning home on Feb. 17 against in-state rival Vanderbilt.