Santiago Vescovi rejoins Vols for Thursday's Tennessee basketball practice
Santiago Vescovi rejoined his Tennessee teammates for practice Thursday afternoon. The fifth-year guard flew home last week to be with his family and ailing grandmother in Uruguay, missing the exhibition wins over Michigan State and Lenoir-Rhyne.
“We didn’t practice yesterday, so today will be his first day back to practice,” Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey said Thursday at Pratt Pavilion, “but I don’t anticipate, I mean, this is year five for Santi and he’s on autopilot right now, like from a sense of he knows what to do, what to expect, what the standard is.
“So (I) expect it to seamlessly know flow in his transition.”
The Vols won 89-88 at Michigan State on Sunday and beat Lenoir-Rhyne 90-48 on Tuesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena, playing without both Vescovi and junior point guard Zakai Zeigler.
Transfers Dalton Knecht, Jordan Gainey lift Vols in exhibition wins
Zeigler is continuing to work back from the torn ACL that ended his sophomore season in February. Gainey didn’t have an update for Zeigler’s availability before Thursday’s practice.
“I hadn’t talked to Chad today,” Gainey said of Tennessee team trainer Chad Newman, “so I’m not sure. We’ll see. I anticipate him to be in practice today and doing kind of what he normally does so we’ll see.”
Tennessee, ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25, opens the regular-season schedule against Tennessee Tech on Monday (6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, SEC Network+) at Thompson-Boling Arena. The Vols go to Wisconsin for the first road game of the season next Friday (9 p.m. ET, Peacock).
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Transfers Dalton Kencht and Jordan Gainey provided a spark in both exhibition wins.
Knecht, the fifth-year wing from Northern Colorado, had 28 points at Michigan State, ahead of 20 from Gainey. It was Gainey who hit the second of two free throws with 1.9 seconds left to lift the Vols in the win. He started the game a perfect 5-for-5 from the field, going 4-for-4 from the 3-point line, with 14 early points.
Up Next: No. 9 Tennessee vs. Tennessee Tech, Monday, 6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network+
Justin Gainey said Thursday that he didn’t expect roles to change for Knecht and Gainey when Vescovi and Zeigler get back in the game-day rotation.
“I think the advantage to having such a deep team is hopefully they don’t change their approach,” Gainey said. “They continue to be aggressive on that side of the ball and be confident and obviously they to continue defensively to grow and to continue to come in that direction.
“But I hope there’s no adjustment for them that they continue to bring it at that level, Santi and ‘Z’ bringing it at their level, and I think that’s the recipe for the team that we all hope to see that has big time success in the regular season and afterwards.”
