Tennessee’s Derek Reese dunks against Arkansas in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015, in Knoxville.KNOXVILLE — What a difference three days made for the Tennessee basketball Volunteers.
And how dangerously close they came to throwing it all away.
Coming off a game in which it scored a Thompson-Boling Arena-record low 38 points in a bitterly disappointing loss to Alabama on Saturday, Tennessee roared out to a 16-point second-half lead and nearly gave it all back to 19th-ranked Arkansas before surviving a furious late rally and winning 74-69 Tuesday night.
“I think it’s great for us because we have such a young team, and they’ve never really been through this before,” senior guard Josh Richardson said after scoring 20 points to lead Tennessee to its second win against a top-20 team this season.
“I think it was great to see how resilient they were and how fast we turned around and played so well.”