4 hours ago
Tennessee Athletics
ORLANDO — Fourth-seeded Tennessee held off a late rally from No. 13 seed Louisiana and advances to the NCAA Tournament Round of 16 after claiming a 58-55 victory Thursday at the Amway Center.
Graduate Tyreke Key, playing his first career NCAA Tournament game, led the Vols with 12 points in 31 minutes, tied for most minutes played since December. Jahmai Mashack was the only other double-digit Vol, scoring 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, delivering three assists and picking up two steals.
Uros Plavsic, making his first start since Jan. 17, scored nine points on 4-of-5 shooting.
After closing the first half on an 11-0 run and then beating Louisiana 13-6 in the opening 6:06 of the second half, Tennessee extended its lead to 18 points.
The Vols held an 18-point lead three times in two minutes eight before a 13-0 run in Louisiana reduced Tennessee’s lead to just five points on a Kobe Julien 3-pointer with 7:29 remaining, 48 -43.
Coming out of a timeout, Tennessee responded with a 6-2 surge – with four points from Mashack – to take a nine-point lead before the media timeout of less than four minutes.
With just over a minute left and Tennessee leading by eight, Louisiana staged a final comeback attempt, scoring five straight points and cutting Tennessee’s lead to 56-53 with 23 seconds left.
Josiah-Jordan James and Julian Phillips each went 1 for 2 from the free throw line in the final 20 seconds to secure the Vols victory.
In the first half, Tennessee turned the ball over 12 times, but closed the period on an 11-0 run and took a 30-19 halftime lead. Despite 12 turnovers, Tennessee forced eight turnovers in Louisiana and limited the Ragin’ Cajuns to just 30 percent shooting from the field for the first 20 minutes.
The Vols led by up to eight points in the first 10 minutes of the game at 19-11 before Louisiana scored eight in a row to tie the game at 19 with 4:43 left in the first half.
With the score tied at 19, Tennessee then recorded an 11-0 run in the final 4:06 of the half-limit by a Plavsic bucket just before the buzzer. Plavsic had a team-high seven points in the first half on 3-of-3 shooting.
Of Louisiana’s 19 points in the first half, 12 came from Jordan Brown, who was 5 for 8 from the field in the first period. No other Ragin’ Cajun has scored more than one field goal in the first half.
TENNESSEE CLASSIC UNIFORMS MAKE ANOTHER APPEARANCE: For the fifth time this season, the Vols sported their “Tennessee Classic” uniforms and improved to 5-0 in doing so. The Big Orange also wore Tennessee Classic uniforms in wins over No. 10 Texas, No. 1 Alabama, Arkansas and in the SEC Tournament against Ole Miss.
FOLLOWING
Tennessee advances to the Round of 32 in Saturday’s NCAA Tournament against No. 5 Duke. Tip is set for 2:40 p.m. ET on CBS.