No. 5 Tennessee gives up 14-point lead, then rallies from 11 down to win at Georgia

ATHENS — Good luck figuring this Tennessee basketball team out. After erasing a 15-point deficit in a losing effort at Mississippi State on Wednesday, the fifth-ranked Vols led by 14 at Georgia Saturday afternoon, gave up the lead, got down by 11, then rallied to an improbable win over the final eight minutes.

The Vols closed the game on a 15-1 run, winning 85-79 inside a stunned Stegeman Coliseum.

The Georgia lead was 11 with 8:29 left, after the Bulldogs spent 16 minutes outscoring the Vols by 25. But that’s when Tennessee started finding answers, usually in the form of Dalton Knecht. 

Tennessee made six straight shots from the field between the 7:30 and 3:28 marks of the second half, then Knecht tied the game at 78-all with 2:33 to go, with the Vols on an 8-0 run.

Knecht delivered the dagger with 1:56 left, putting Tennessee up 81-79. Knecht added two free throws with 39 seconds left to get the lead to four.

Knecht led Tennessee (12-4, 2-1 SEC) with a game-high 36 points and Zakai Zeigler had 18 points, five assists and five rebounds, after committing six turnovers in the first half. Jonas Aidoo scored 10 and had 15 rebounds while Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi combined for 10 points on 4-for-14 shooting.

Georgia (12-4, 2-1) had four scorers in double figures, led by Jabri Abdur-Rahim’s 21 points. Noah Thomasson had 14, RJ Melendez scored 13 and Silas Demary Jr. added 13.

Back-to-back threes in the first 34 seconds of the second half made it a 15-0 Georgia run, putting the Bulldogs up 43-42 and forcing a Tennessee timeout.

The Georgia lead was four, its biggest of the game at the time, at the 16:06 mark, after a five-point possession from Abdur-Rahim. James had a common foul on the floor upgraded to a Flagrant 1 on review, giving Abdur-Rahim two free throws, which he followed with a corner three.

The Bulldogs had scored 25 of the game’s last 32 points while going from down 14 to up four.

Demary Jr. hit a three as the shot clock expired at the 10:46 mark, building Georgia’s lead to eight as the Bulldogs were outscoring 27-14 in the second half and 36-14 since 4:01 in the first half. Thomasson made it a 10-point lead on the next trip down, scoring at the rim after Aidoo had a paint shot bounce off the rim.

Vols were scoreless over final four minutes of first half

Tennessee built its lead to 14 points with 4:01 left in the first half, after Zeigler came up with a steal at midcourt and cruised to an uncontested transition layup, but that was the last points the Vols would score in the first half.

Georgia closed on a 9-0 run going into halftime, cutting the Tennessee lead to 42-37 at the break after the Vols missed their final seven shots of the half. Knecht had 16 points in 16 minutes in the first half, giving him 42 points in 46 minutes dating back to the second half Wednesday at Mississippi State.

Zeigler had eight points, five assists and three rebounds in the first half, but also accounted for six of Tennessee’s 10 turnovers in the first half. James went 0-for-6 from the field in the first half. Awaka scored six points, Aidoo had four and Vescovi had three in the first half.

Up Next: No. 5 Tennessee vs. Florida, Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN

After two straight road games — the Vols lost 77-72 at Mississippi State on Wednesday, falling in the final minute after rallying to tie the game after trailing by as many as 15 points — Tennessee returns home to host Florida on Tuesday, a 7 p.m Eastern Time start on ESPN.

It’s the start of a stretch of three of four games at home. Alabama at home is next on Saturday, January 20 (Noon or 2 p.m. ET on ESPN or ESPN 2).

Tennessee, which does not have a midweek game after hosting the Crimson Tide, goes to Vanderbilt on January 27 (6 p.m. ET, SEC Network) and is back home against South Carolina on January 30 (6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network) to round out the January schedule.