After leading Tennessee in scoring during the basketball Volunteers' three-game European trip in the summer, junior college transfer Chris Darrington was hindered by an ankle injury.
It would appear that he's starting to get back on track.
The 6-foot-1 guard contributed a season-high 11 points and five assists in 19 minutes in the 20th-ranked Vols' 81-71 win over Lipscomb last Saturday. And it wasn't just the stats: Darrington was more aggressive on offense and solid on defense, which allowed coach Rick Barnes to play him down the stretch.
Darrington averaged 14.3 points per game in Europe, with a team-high 19 points in the Vols' 86-79 win over the Catalan All-Stars on Aug. 4.
"He's starting to be the player we saw this summer on our trip," Barnes said. "We want to drive the ball and some guys think one dribble and a pull-up jumper is a drive, and it's not. Chris was at least trying to turn the corner and get to a high-percentage area and make a play. He's getting there; the more he gets familiar with what we're trying to do, he'll get better with it.
"He's definitely improving. I just thought he had a very good command about what he was doing out there."
Darrington averaged 20.7 points and 5.1 assists a game as a junior college All-American at Vincennes, but his limitations after the injury caused a little doubt to creep into his mind as to whether he was capable of playing at the Southeastern Conference level. His play in Saturday's win helped erase any concerns.
"I was thinking, 'Can I play here? Am I good enough?'" Darrington said. "But I knew I was injured, and now I'm starting to feel that way, and hopefully I can continue to play well. I really needed this game, and I'm glad Coach left me out there and I was able to play those minutes, because I needed them."
Checker it out
Tennessee announced plans to "checker" Thompson-Boling Arena for Sunday's 3 p.m. game against seventh-ranked and defending national champion North Carolina.
Fans planning to attend the game are being asked to visit CheckerTBA.com to see if their seats are in a designated "orange" or "white" section, with VolShop locations offering T-shirts in both colors.
"First, we're excited about the opportunity to play a great team like North Carolina at home in front of a sold-out crowd," Tennessee junior Admiral Schofield said in the news release. "But to envision playing that game in front of a human checkerboard of more than 21,000 fans we can't wait to see it.
"I know Thompson-Boling Arena is going to be electric."
It will be the first attempt to checker a men's basketball game since March 1, 2006, when the lower bowl was transformed into a orange and white checkerboard when the Vols hosted Kentucky on senior night. Tennessee lost that game 80-78 in front of 24,108.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.