Whether or not this is the most successful Tennessee basketball team of this generation will be determined by next month's NCAA tournament.
It is certainly shaping up to be the cleanest.
The experience and versatility of junior point guard Zakai Zeigler, fifth-year senior guards Josiah-Jordan James, Dalton Knecht and Santiago Vescovi, and junior forward Jonas Aidoo are paying off on multiple fronts for the Volunteers, and one category where that can get overlooked is turnovers. Tennessee is averaging 10.1 turnovers per game through 25 contests, which is on pace to be its lowest clip this century.
"I think it's just having good players offensively," Vescovi said after Saturday night's 88-53 thrashing of Vanderbilt inside the Food City Center. "If you think about the guys who have the ball in their hands the most — Zakai, DK, Josiah or even the post guys — they all do a good job with it. They've been really efficient, and I think that goes back to taking the first shot that we have open.
"It's also knowing how the flow of the game is going, and if we miss two or three 3s in a row, we try to get to the rim or do something different, but if you get an open shot, just take it."
Tennessee is experiencing a fourth consecutive season of decreased turnovers, going from 13.6 a contest in the 2019-20 season to 12.5 in 2020-21 to 12.3 in 2021-22 to 12.0 last year, and the lowest previous average for the Vols since Y2K was 10.5, which was performed by Cuonzo Martin's 2013-14 team that advanced to the NCAA tourney's Sweet 16.
The Vols racked up 28 assists while committing just seven turnovers in its crushing of the Commodores. This season's reduction in miscues has coincided with a quicker tempo, but that's also where the experience and versatility kick in.
"A lot of teams look for a point guard and one person to bring the ball up, and we don't have to do that," Zeigler said Monday afternoon in a news conference. "Whether it's Jo or DK or whoever — even Jonas sometimes has brought the ball up for us, and that just starts the break.
"I like to get out and run with anyone, and being able to trust these guys in bringing it up allows me to fill their spot."
Tennessee improved to 19-6 overall and 9-3 in Southeastern Conference play with Saturday's triumph, and the Vols will be hunting a 20-win season Tuesday night (7 on the SEC Network) when they visit cellar-dwelling Missouri (8-17, 0-12). The Vols will arrive in Columbia as an Associated Press top-five team, trailing only Connecticut, Houston, Purdue and Arizona.
A season-high six SEC teams are ranked this week, with Tennessee followed by No. 13 Alabama, No. 14 Auburn, No. 17 Kentucky, No. 20 South Carolina and No. 24 Florida.
The Vols were swept by Missouri last year, falling to the Tigers 86-85 in Knoxville in one of the league's most thrilling finishes and then again 79-71 in an SEC tournament quarterfinal matchup.
"Regardless of their record, it doesn't matter," Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark said Monday. "That's a program that beat up on us two games last year. We're not looking at this as a game where we're just going to skate by."
Or as a game to suddenly become careless with the ball.
"Most of the times when we turn down a shot and we keep trying to move the ball, we don't get the same open shot that we could have had in the first place," Vescovi said. "Being confident in having the open shots and taking them is leading us to being a lot more efficient."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.