KNOXVILLE – Tennessee basketball legend Chris Lofton was in Thompson-Boling Arena on Thursday night and watched Grant Williams match one of his freshman scoring records.
Lofton also saw the Volunteers turn a first-half scare into a runaway victory.
Williams responded following a Wednesday chat with coach Rick Barnes and became the first Tennessee rookie to record a 30-point game since 2005 as the Vols reversed a 15-point deficit and beat Lipscomb 92-77.
“Guys that are my size at my position need to do a better job with their energy and do a better job being a presence,” Williams said of the message he received from Barnes. “And I wasn’t doing my job. I needed to do a better job of rebounding the ball and giving us an inside presence so we can have inside-out basketball.
“It was a great talk, and it just inspired me to come out today and play a good game.”
Tennessee (6-4) remarkably held the visitors to 19 points on 26 percent shooting in the second half after allowing the Bisons to score 58 points thanks to a 3-point barrage in the first half.
Among the national leaders in 3s and free throws attempted, Lipscomb (4-9) provided a preview of its scorching first-half display by draining two treys in the game’s opening 68 seconds. Later, after the Vols battled back to grab a 25-24 lead, the Bisons made five 3s during a 17-2 run to open a 14-point lead.
Leading 58-43 with 1:22 left before halftime, Lipscomb missed four free throws as Tennessee scored the final six points of the half in what Barnes thought was a turning point of the game.
“We’ve got to figure it out,” Tennessee’s Robert Hubbs III said after recording his first career double-double with 22 points and 10 rebounds. “We’ve got to put some pieces together. We’ve got to find out what’s missing to get two 20-minute segments together, but we’re going to get it together.”
Even scarier than Lipscomb making 11 3s in the first half was the freakish elbow injury Vols freshman forward John Fulkerson suffered when he landed awkwardly after trying to take a charge.
Barnes had no specific update with Fulkerson set to go undergo further testing, but a source close to the player after the game indicated Fulkerson dislocated his right elbow.
“I thought I was going to vomit,” forward Lew Evans said. “It was gross. That’s happened like two or three times in my career playing college basketball with my team or another team where something’s popped out. When you see those kinds of things, you just feel bad and it makes you want to throw up. It’s just awful.”
Tennessee took the lead with a 23-4 run spanning nearly six minutes over both halves and turned the game into a rout with 19 straight points after the Bisons tied it at 71 with 12:25 left.
The Vols held Lipscomb scoreless for more than seven minutes during the decisive stretch and forced the Nashville team to miss all but one of its 10 3-point attempts in the second half.
“We knew they were good shooters,” Evans said. “I think it was all us. We were helping too (much) inside on the post and we were getting too far for them skipping it and shooting 3s. Making those adjustments at halftime and in the first half to try to get them to run off the line and put the ball on the floor, it’s kind of what we did in the second half. It was effective.”
Williams poured in 16 points in the first half to help Tennessee keep pace with the hot-shooting Bisons and scored eight quick points with a pair of three-point plays in the opening minutes of the second half to swing momentum.
He finished 10-of-12 from the field and made 10 of 13 free throws.
“I don’t think he would call it a pleasant conversation,” Barnes said. “I basically said to him he’s really disappointed me, a guy that we thought would give us an impact. I can tell there’s games where he wants to shoot the ball from the perimeter and all this, and I said, ‘That’ll come, but right now what this team needs is for you to be a factor inside.’
“We need to have somebody in here that wants the ball, that’s demanding the ball. He’s got great hands. He’s got a nice touch. He knows how to use his body, but he doesn’t demand the ball. Tonight he did, honestly, what we expected and what we wanted from him.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.