KNOXVILLE – Entering this season, senior guards Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner were expected to lead what was supposed to be a mostly young Tennessee men’s basketball team with hopes of maintaining the program’s high level of play in recent years.
What has transpired is nothing close to what was envisioned, but Bowden and Turner will get one final opportunity to share the court together as Volunteers thanks to senior day.
Bowden and Turner will be honored prior to Saturday’s game at Thompson-Boling Arena as Tennessee (17-13, 9-8 Southeastern Conference) hosts No. 17 Auburn (24-6, 11-6) at noon. ESPN2 will televise the matchup, the second meeting this season between the Vols and the Tigers, who overcame a 17-point second-half deficit to win 73-66 at home on Feb. 22.
Tennessee is coming off back-to-back wins, with the latest Tuesday night’s 81-73 comeback victory at No. 6 Kentucky. Auburn is coming off back-to-back losses to Kentucky and Texas A&M and has lost four of its past six games to share second place in the SEC standings with LSU and Florida, the team Tennessee beat last Saturday in Knoxville.
Turner was the first player the Vols signed after Rick Barnes became their coach before the 2015-16 season. His Tennessee career was cut short due to thoracic outlet syndrome, with Turner announcing in December he would have season-ending surgery, but he is one of only five Vols to top 1,000 points (1,086, 46th all-time at Tennessee), 300 assists (347, 12th) and rebounds (308) for his career.
The 6-foot-2, 187-pounder from Florence, Alabama, averaged 12.3 points, 7.1 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game this season and was the team’s best perimeter defender at the time he stepped away, chipping in 1.8 steals per contest. Turner had 14 assists with no turnovers in an 82-63 win over Murray State on Nov. 12, and he made a 3-pointer to defeat Virginia Commonwealth University 72-69 on Nov. 30.
“It’s very tough for Lamonte to put what he put into our program, and really knowing that this would be the year he had probably gunned for all along, then having to step away from it because of the injury,” Barnes said Thursday. “Lord knows he didn’t want to do that. He had just taken it as far as he could take it. We could see the hurt and the frustration on his face because, again, another guy that is a great teammate.”
Bowden was already one of the team’s best defenders, and he stepped up in that capacity after Turner exited. The 6-foot-5, 193-pound Knoxville native struggled with his shot after Turner stepped away, but he has regained his touch lately and has made at least two 3-pointers in four of the past five games.
The game against Auburn will be his 132nd as a Vol and his 99th start, with those numbers fifth and 14th in program history. He’s 24th all-time in scoring at Tennessee with 1,348 points and has made 185 3-pointers, which ranks seventh.
“With Jordan, I don’t know if there’s a more better-liked player I’ve ever coached on a team,” Barnes noted. “He’s been a big part of a lot of wins here. I think now he’s one of the top 25 all-time leading scorers. Both of them are just as solid as you could expect from anyone. And guys you really enjoy being around every day.”
AP photo by Julie Bennett / Tennessee freshman Josiah-Jordan James (5) competes with Auburn center Austin Wiley (50) and guard Jamal Johnson for a rebound during the second half of their teams’ SEC matchup on Feb. 22 in Auburn, Ala.Here are three keys for the Vols to defeat the Tigers:
1. Maintain the identity: It was no surprise the Tigers’ 18-0 run in the first meeting coincided with Tennessee freshman guard Santiago Vescovi going out with his fourth foul with 14:31 remaining and the Vols up 17. Auburn proceeded to make seven of its next 11 shots, while the Vols took only four shots in the next seven minutes as they struggled with turnovers. It was the Vols’ defense and Bowden’s shooting that had built that lead, so they need to try to maintain some level of that combination should a similar situation arise again.
2. Keep James engaged: Josiah-Jordan James was in his worst three-game stretch of the season when he had four points and six turnovers in the first meeting with Auburn. In the past two games, he averaged 14.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists and was a plus-25 in 70 minutes on the court. The Vols were minus-12 in the 10 minutes he didn’t play, with all of those against Kentucky for a minus-27 in that stretch. James didn’t step up against Auburn when Vescovi went out and the team needed him to. That can’t happen again – he’s too valuable on both ends of the court.
3. Ball security: It was bad enough that the Vols turned the ball over 24 times at Auburn, including eight during the game-changing stretch in the second half. Worse is that the Tigers may be the worst team in the league to have that problem against, because they feast on any opportunity to score off those turnovers. Auburn had 27 points off the 24 takeaways in last month’s meeting, and in this rematch the combination of Vescovi, James and Bowden can’t let that happen again.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.