KNOXVILLE - Lipscomb turned the second half of its basketball game Saturday against Tennessee into a parade to the free-throw line for the Volunteers. The Bisons hoped to slow the home team in the open court.
It didn't work.
The 24th-ranked Vols were solid at the charity stripe in the second half and won 81-71 over the Nashville team at Thompson-Boling Arena. Saturday's win was a final tune-up before the Vols host 2016-17 national champion and 11th-ranked North Carolina on Dec. 17.
It also gave the Vols their best start since the 2010-11 season.
Grant Williams led four players in double figures for Tennessee (7-1) , finishing with 19 points - 15 in the second half - and eight rebounds to go with three blocked shots. Admiral Schofield had nine of his 13 points in the first half, while James Daniel had 12 points and Chris Darrington chipped in 11 points and five assists.
"I thought in the first half, if we were better on the offensive end, we would have had a bigger lead than we had," Vols coach Rick Barnes said. "Defensively we did a pretty good job, but they're a good basketball team. They play a lot of basketball together against some really good teams.
"Overall our defense was OK. Other than a couple of plays, we were pretty good defensively."
The Bisons were held to 40 percent from the field. They were led by Garrison Mathews, who had 22 points and six rebounds but shot only 5-of-13 from the floor. Kenny Cooper had 11 points and seven assists but five turnovers, while Eli Pepper and Michael Buckland scored 10 points each. Pepper had a game-high 15 rebounds.
The Vols made 20 of their 24 second-half free throws.
They shot well from the field in the first half, especially from 3-point range where they were 6-of-13. But at times they fell a little too in love with the long shot, attempting - and missing - four straight at one point, the last by Williams, who entered the game with two makes in 12 attempts.
They still held a 40-27 lead at the break, but then the Bisons (6-4) started to muddy up the game, with 15 fouls in an attempt to slow the transition game.
Barnes admitted there wasn't much of a flow to the second half of the game.
"I think so," Darrington replied when asked if he felt the visitors tried to slow the pace, "and I think they did a really good job of that. Coach Barnes talked in the huddle about how they are going to keep playing no matter what the score is, so we had to continue to be on edge."
With the tempo in its favor, Lipscomb started the second half with a 13-4 run to trim the margin to four, and the Vols' lead was only 50-47 after a three-point play by Mathews with 11:20 to play. Darrington responded with a layup two possessions later to start a 6-0 run, and the Vols stretched the lead to double digits, maintaining a comfortable advantage the rest of the way.
Darrington became the seventh player to score in double figures this season for the Vols.
"We're a tough team to guard. You never know who's going to step up," Williams said. "We have guys like John (Fulkerson) and Derrick (Walker) who haven't shown what they can do yet. The whole team is just so versatile, but we have to pride ourselves on the other end and not make teams be able to score on us."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.