Tennessee Basketball: Vols shoot past Butler in Battle 4 Atlantis first round

Butler kept Santiago Vescovi scoreless for 27 minutes. Then Tennessee’s sharp-shooting senior guard got back to doing what he does best.

He hit a three. Then another. Then another. It was the spark the 22nd-ranked Vols needed as part of a 17-1 game-changing run against Butler Wednesday night inside Imperial Arena, on the way to a 71-45 win in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis.

Tennessee (3-1) got 13 points from Vescovi and 11 more from five-star freshman Julian Phillips, who added six rebounds and two assists. Zakai Zeigler scored 10 points off the bench, Uros Plavsic had seven while Olivier Nkmahoua and Tyreke Key scored nine each.

Senior wing Josiah-Jordan James, the leading scorer and rebounder for the Vols through the first three games of the season, did not play due to knee soreness.

Butler (3-2) got 18 points from Jayden Taylor, who went 4-for-6 from the 3-point line while his teammates combined to go just 1-for-14.

Vescovi hit his first shot with 13:01 left, putting Tennessee up by seven. After a Phillips jumper, Vescovi hit another three at the 11:30 mark. He hit another with 9:15 to go, capping the 17-1 run, building the lead to 18 and forcing a Butler timeout.

Vols closed first half on 10-0 run to lead by five at halftime

Tennessee led 28-23 at the break after Zeigler hit a deep three to beat the halftime horn, helping the Vols go into the locker room on a 10-0 run over the final 3:31 of the first half.

Zeigler’s three was Tennessee’s first of the game, after the team started 0-for-6 from the line. The Vols had 10 turnovers in the half but forced 14 Butler turnovers.

Zeigler scored eight points off the bench in the first half, going 3-for-7 from the field. Phillips had seven, making just one shot from the field while going 5-for-6 from the free-throw line. 

Nkamhoua scored four points and had a couple assists before picking up his second foul. Uros Plavsic had two fouls of his own not long after drawing a second foul on Butler center Manny Bates.

Tennessee trailed by as many as six points in the first half, with Butler leading for 17 of the first 20 minutes. The Vols started the game by making just one of their first five shots while committing four turnovers in the first five minutes.

Taylor started 3-for-5 from the 3-point line for Butler to help the Bulldogs jump in front early.

Injury Notes: Josiah-Jordan James out with knee soreness

Josiah-Jordan James did not play against Butler due to what Tennessee described as knee soreness. James had the knee scoped in the spring and had three injections done over three weeks last month.

James missed the preseason while coming back from the offseason knee procedure. He returned to the court in the season-opening win over Tennessee Tech on November 7 and had played in each of the first three games this season. 

Entering Wednesday’s game, James was leading the Vols in scoring (13.7 points per game) and rebounding (6.0) while averaging 23.7 minutes per game. He scored 18 points and had six rebounds against Florida Gulf Coast last week at Thompson-Boling Arena. He had 15 points and eight rebounds in the 78-66 loss to Colorado in Nashville on November 13 and scored eight points against Tennessee Tech. 

Up Next: Tennessee vs. USC, 1:30 p.m. ET, Thursday, ESPN2

Tennessee will face USC at 1:30 p.m. ET Thursday in the semifinal round at Atlantis. No. 3 Kansas and Wisconsin play the first semifinal game at 11 a.m. ET on ESPN.

USC beat BYU 82-76 in the third game Wednesday to advance to Thursday’s semifinal round. Memphis transfer Boogie Ellis scored a game-high 27 points, leading four Trojans in double-figures.

Drew Peterson scored 16 points for USC, Reese Dixon-Waters had 13 and Joshua Morgan had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Spencer Johnson had 18 points and four assists in 31 minutes for BYU, Rudi Williams had 15 points, six assists and four rebounds and Jaxson Robinson and Gideon George scored 14 each.