No. 7 Tennessee fades late in loss to No. 1 Kansas in Maui Invitational, 69-60
No. 7 Tennessee went toe-to-toe with the No. 1 and No. 2-ranked teams in the Associated Press Top 25 on back-to-back days at the Maui Invitational but came away with nothing to show for it.
The Vols, after battling No. 2 Purdue in a 71-67 loss Tuesday night, faded late in a 69-60 loss to No. 1 Kansas Wednesday in the consolation game at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu, finishing fourth in the eight-team tournament.
Tennessee (4-2) got 21 points form Santiago Vescovi, Dalton Knecht scored 13 and Jordan Gainey had 13 off the bench before shots stopped falling in the closing minutes.
Kansas (5-1) got 16 points and 18 rebounds from Hunter Dickinson. Kevin McCullar had 14 points and KJ Adams scored 13.
The game was tied at 49 with 12:43 left, after Vescovi hi his fourth 3-pointer of the game, but Kansas went on a 16-6 run over the next 8:31 to build a 10-point lead, its biggest the game at the time.
Tennessee made just one of seven shots from the field during the run, while the Jayhawks shot 60.9% from the field in the second half. The Vols had missed 14 of their last 17 shots at the game’s final media timeout.
Vescovi’s fifth three of the game, with 1:29 left, snapped a scoreless stretch of four minutes, 43 seconds.
Dalton Knecht, Santiago Vescovi carried Vols in first half
Tennessee led by as many as seven points in the first half and trailed by as many as six, before going into halftime with the game tied at 35-35.
Vescovi tied it on a 3-pointer with 37 seconds left in the first half. He had a game-high 13 points in the first half, going 3-for-4 from the 3-point line after going a combined 1-for-8 over the previous two games. Knecht scored 10 points on 3-for-9 shooting.
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Dickinson had 10 points and 11 rebounds in the first half to lead Kansas, which used a 17-4 run to turn a 24-17 deficit into a 34-28 lead with just over two minutes left before halftime. The Vols punched back with a 7-1 run to close the half.
The fourth-place finish matches Tennessee’s best finish at the Maui Invitational. The Vols also finished fourth in 2000, in their first appearance in the tournament.
Before meeting Kansas in Wednesday’s third-place game, Tennessee split games over the first two days of the tournament, beating Syracuse 73-56 in the first round on Monday and losing to No. 2 Purdue 71-67 Tuesday, the Vols’ first loss of the new season.
What’s Next: Tennessee’s upcoming schedule
Tennessee on Wednesday became the first team since Loyola Chicago in 1972 to play the No. 1 and No. 2-ranked teams over back-to-back games (Marquette did the same over the last two days in Honolulu).
The schedule doesn’t let up when the Vols return to the mainland. Tennessee goes to No. 14 North Carolina on Wednesday (7:15 p.m. Eastern Time, ESPN) in the first edition of the ACC-SEC Challenge.
The Vols return home to host George Mason on December 5, then welcome Illinois to Knoxville on December 9, a Noon ET start on CBS. The final marquee non-conference game is against North Carolina State in San Antonio on December 16.
