No. 9 Tennessee rolls Tennessee Tech in season opener, 80-42
No. 9 Tennessee’s first regular-season game didn’t look all that different than the preseason. Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey kept scoring, the Vols kept playing their usual brand of smothering defense and rolled over Tennessee Tech 80-42 at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Tennessee (1-0) got 17 from Knecht and 11 more from Gainey as the two combined to go 10-for-19 from the field. Josiah-Jordan James scored 15, going 5-for-6 from the 3-point line, and Zakai Zeigler finished with three points in 13 minutes while making his return from the torn ACL he suffered in February.
Santiago Vescovi, after missing both of Tennessee’s exhibition games due to a death in the family, battled foul trouble in his 21 minutes, scoring two points on 1-for-6 shooting.
Tennessee Tech (0-1) got a team-high 13 points from Josiah Davis.
The Vols rebounded from a cold start — 1-for-6 from the floor over the first four minutes — to go on a 24-2 run over a stretch of seven minutes, 39 seconds in the first half, stretching a 9-6 lead at the 10:14 mark to 33-8 with 2:35 left in the half.
Davis scored for Tech with 1:40 left in the first half to get his team to double-digits before halftime.
The Vols finished the game 12-for-30 from the 3-point line while shooting 46.0% from the field with 19 assists on 29 made shots.
Zakai Zeigler makes his long-awaited return
Zeigler returned to the floor just 251 days removed from the ACL tear that ended his sophomore season back in February. He checked in with 13:02 left in the first half, receiving a loud ovation and blowing a kiss to the crowd.
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He hit his first shot of the game from the 3-point line with 15:37 left in the second half — putting the Vols up 47-15 — after going 0-for-2 in six minutes in the first half.
Zeigler finished 1-for-4 from the field, including 1-for-3 from he 3-point line. He had four assists and a pair of rebounds and was called for two fouls.
Up Next: No. 9 Tennessee at Wisconsin, Friday, 9 p.m. ET, Peacock
After back-to-back home games — the Vols beat Lenoir-Rhyne 90-48 in the exhibition finale last week — Tennessee goes back on the road in the Big Ten, facing Wisconsin at the Kohl Center in Madison on Friday night, a 9 Eastern Time start. The game can be streamed via Peacock.
The Vols won 89-88 at No. 4 Michigan State on October 29, getting 28 points from Knecht and 20 from Gainey, who hit a free-throw with 1.9 seconds left to give his team the one-point win. Tennessee led by as many as 18 points in the first half.
Wisconsin is not ranked in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25, but received the most votes in the poll among unranked teams. The Badgers won 68-48 at Thompson-Boling Arena in December 2019, the first game in a two-game home-and-home with the Vols that was delayed by the COVID pandemic.
