Tennessee beats South Carolina to win SEC regular-season championship

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Dalton Knecht hit the corner three, got fouled, then stared down and counted to three with his left hand. He hit the free throw that followed, putting No. 4 Tennessee up by 12 points at No. 14 South Carolina and quiet a Gamecock run.

From there, every other orange shirt inside a sold-out Colonial Life Arena was counting down to an SEC championship.

Knecht continued his run toward the SEC Player of the Year award by scoring 26 points and leading Tennessee to a 66-59 win over South Carolina as the Vols clinched their first outright SEC regular-season championship since 2008 and first regular-season league title since 2018.

Tennessee (24-6, 14-3 SEC) got 14 more points from Jonas Aidoo and Zakai Zeigler finished with 11 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

South Carolina (24-6, 12-5), which entered the game second in the league standings one game back of the Vols, got 17 points from Meechie Johnson and 11 from both Ta’Lon Cooper and Collin Murray-Boyles.

Tennessee’s lead was 13 in the first minute of the second half, but South Carolina responded later with a 6-0 run over 1:43 to get the deficit down to six, forcing the Vols to call a timeout.

From there, Zeigler made two free throws and Knecht followed with his four-point play with 10:55 left. Aidoo dunked with at the 9:40 mark to build the lead to 14, the biggest of the game.

South Carolina cut the deficit all the way down to four in the final minute, before Aidoo, Zeigler, Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi all hit free throws to secure the win.

Knecht scored 14 points in the first half to lead Tennessee to a 35-24 lead at the break. He went 5-for-9 from the field and started 4-for-4 at the 3-point line. Three Knecht threes over a span of four possessions turned a two-point game into an 11-point game. Aidoo had eight points and three rebounds in the first half and Zeigler had four points, five rebounds and four assists before halftime.

Vols win second SEC regular-season championship under Rick Barnes 

It’s the second SEC regular-season championship under head coach Rick Barnes, who led Tennessee to a share of the title in 2017-18. Both the Vols and Auburn ended the year with 13-5 records in league play. 

Tennessee also won shares of the SEC regular-season championship in 1972, 1977, 1982 and 2000. The Vols won other outright titles in 1936, 1941, 1943 and 1967.

Barnes also led Tennessee to the 2022 SEC Tournament championship, Tennessee’s first since 1979, after beating Mississippi State, Kentucky and Texas A&M over a span of three days to cut down the nets at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla. 

Up next: No. 4 Tennessee vs. No. 15 Kentucky, Saturday, 4 p.m. ET, CBS

Tennessee now returns home for the regular-season finale against No. 15 Kentucky on Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena. The Vols will honor fifth-year seniors Dalton Knecht, Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James before the game.

Tennessee next week will play on Friday in the SEC Tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The NCAA Tournament bracket will be revealed on Sunday, March 17, at 6 p.m. ET on CBS.

The Vols entered Wednesday as the top No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament according to ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi.

But Lunardi wrote Wednesday afternoon that the Vols were playing for the fourth and final No. 1 seed at South Carolina, continuing to battle Arizona with the spot.

The win over the Gamecocks gives Tennessee eight Quad 1 wins on the season, including three over their last three games with wins over Auburn and on the road at Alabama and South Carolina.