The Santiago Vescovi of old showed up for No. 17 Tennessee in the win over No. 20 Illinois

The shot clock was running out and Santiago Vescovi was headed to the corner. That’s where the pass found Tennessee’s fifth-year senior guard as he was falling away toward the baseline. He shot it anyway, with a leaping Illinois defender in his face.

After the shot went in, Vescovi ran back down the court with a smile on his face, after extending Tennessee’s lead to eight points with nine minutes, 22 seconds left Saturday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Two minutes later, Vescovi was running full speed toward the rim in transition. In an instant, he flipped the ball over his head, directly toward a trailing Jahmai Mashack, who caught the pass and in one motion scored at the rim, extending the lead to 10.

Again, Vescovi flashed a smile headed the other direction. 

What a shot 😳

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— Tennessee Basketball (@Vol_Hoops) December 9, 2023

Finally, nine games into the season, the Vescovi of old, the one who showed up so consistently over the last four seasons, was showing up for the Vols.

“It was,” head coach Rick Barnes said after No. 17 Tennessee’s 86-79 win over No. 20 Illinois. “He’s been such a big part of who we had been the last couple years. And to see him come out playing the way he did, he’s kept playing.”

Vescovi scored 12 points in the win, going 4-for-7 from the field, including 2-for-5 from the 3-point line. He grabbed a team-high nine rebounds. He had three assists, two steals and no turnovers before fouling out after 30 minutes.

“Santi is a special player,” Mashack said. “I feel like it’s still the same thing.”

It was the same vintage Vescovi moments on Saturday.

Driving and finishing with a scoop off the glass. Using one dribble to step around a defender and step into a 3-pointer on the wing. Driving and dropping passes behind collapsing post defenders. 

Driving again, using a head fake and finishing high off the glass. Fighting for a rebound and drawing a foul and a trip to the free-throw line. 

“You can put him in any type of lineup,” Mashack said, “he’s going to make it work. I think he’s great at getting guys shots, drawing defenses, knocking down shots himself.”

It just hasn’t worked that way early on this season. 

He was benched in the second half at North Carolina on November 29, finishing scoreless in just 14 minutes. Barnes blamed it on inconsistency and complacency after the 100-92 loss. 

“We can’t score 92 points and him not have a point,” Barnes said at the time.  

A week before the trip to Chapel Hill, Vescovi scored 21 points in 37 minutes against Kansas in the Maui Invitational, hitting five 3-pointers in the loss in the tournament’s third-place game. In six other games, though, he scored eight points or less. 

Up Next: Tennessee-Georgia Southern, Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network

Against George Mason on Tuesday he scored seven points, had four rebounds and three assists and a steal, taking steps in the right direction after being called out by his head coach. 

“He was trying to find the same thing and find his role,” Mashack said. “And Santi is just amazing on both ends.”

Vescovi struggled to find that role — falling in behind Dalton Knecht as the team’s leading scorer, with Jordan Gainey scoring in bursts as the team’s sixth man early on — after returning to the team just before the regular-opener against Tennessee Tech on November 6.

He missed Tennessee’s two exhibition games after returning home to Uruguay to be with his family and ailing grandmother. 

“He’s had a tough semester,” Barnes said. “He lost his grandmother, that’s hard, but he would say it’s been hard academically. Because he’s serious about getting done what he wants to get done there. But just really proud of the fact that he, and our older guys, I thought, really were well prepared for this game.”

It’s the version of Vescovi seen over the last week — 19 points, 4-for-9 from the 3-point line with 13 rebounds, six assists, three steals and just one turnover in 58 minutes in two wins — that makes this Tennessee team different.

“He’s really (doing) well at getting downhill,” Mashack said, “so I think it wasn’t really a surprise to me that Santi had a great game. I think it’s kind of the same thing. He doesn’t need to score and Santi is a unique player. So I wasn’t surprised at all by how he performed today.”