KNOXVILLE – During Rick Barnes’ first season as coach of the Tennessee men’s basketball team, a home game against Kentucky in February 2016 drew an announced attendance of 19,295 who watched their Volunteers beat the 20th-ranked Wildcats 84-77.
To show the growth the program has made since then, one need look no further than Saturday’s game at Thompson-Boling Arena.
The third-ranked Vols dominated Tennessee Tech from start to finish, never trailing in a 96-53 win over the Golden Eagles in front of 21,165 in Tennessee’s final game of the calendar year. Tennessee (11-1) opens Southeastern Conference play next Saturday at home against Georgia before road games against Missouri and Florida the following week.
Despite the struggles of that first season under Barnes, Tennessee averaged 14,232 fans per game in 2015-16, ranking 17th in the country in attendance. That number dipped to 13,636 the following season but jumped to 16,209 last season, eighth in the country, as the Vols shared the SEC regular-season title and earned a No. 3 seed for the NCAA tournament.
The Vols have averaged 16,976 through six home games this season, all of them against nonconference competition.
“I can’t thank our fans enough,” Barnes said. “We had almost 20,000 last week against Wake (Forest), and tonight we had 21,000. I feel good for the players, the program. One thing we know is we have a chance to have something extremely special here, but it’s going to continue to take work everyday to stay there and to do it. With that said about our fans, I understand them more.
“I figured it out the first year that Tennessee has a great fan base. Our teams weren’t the best of teams four years ago, and they were here in some games. They’ve enjoyed watching these guys grow up some. When you look at them and see the growth in guys like Kyle (Alexander), Admiral (Schofield), Grant (Williams), Lamonte (Turner), all of them, I think they appreciate the way the guys continue to grow and improve as players.”
Schofield, a senior, was part of Barnes’ first Tennessee team that finished 15-19 and lost in the first round of the SEC tournament. Schofield came to Knoxville with a vision of helping build a basketball culture that appears to be in place now. That may not have been the case in his sophomore season, when the Vols went 16-16 and had another first-round exit at the SEC tournament.
“I never questioned the vision,” said Schofield, who scored 16 points Saturday. “I questioned what I was doing. I questioned, was that enough? It wasn’t enough. I had to take myself and go to a different level, and when I went to that different level, everybody went to that different level as well.
“I wouldn’t say it started with me, but people see my successes, see what I’m doing and it’s working and it’s like a domino effect; everybody starts to do it. Earlier this summer, everyone was in the gym and it was hard for me to get a rim – last year that wasn’t the case. It’s just those little things that separate you come tournament time and down the stretch, but right now we’re just focused on Georgia next week.”
Schofield made two of the Vols’ four 3-pointers against the Golden Eagles (4-9), but Tennessee didn’t need to do much from long distance because its combination of ball movement, size and strength was overwhelming enough. Defensively, the Vols had 10 steals and 12 blocks while holding Tennessee Tech to 37 percent shooting, including misses on 17 of its final 18 shots as Tennessee blew the game open.
Grant Williams scored 18 of his game-high 25 points in the first half, and he finished with seven rebounds and three steals in 25 minutes. Schofield made all but one of his eight shots, while point guard Jordan Bone matched Schofield’s scoring total while adding 10 assists for his second double-double in three games.
John Fulkerson had four dunks on his six made field goals and finished with 15 points, the redshirt sophomore’s best as a college player.
Former McCallie standout Jr. Clay led the Golden Eagles with team highs of 16 points, five assists and three steals.
Tennessee never trailed Saturday, with Schofield scoring on a putback on the first possession of the game. The Vols dominated in every aspect with a 62-28 edge in points in the paint, 24 points off 17 Golden Eagles turnovers, a 12-2 edge in second-chance points and 25 fast-break points.
The Vols led 51-33 at halftime and ended the game on a 23-4 run.
And they had the biggest crowd of the season on hand – in a nonconference game nestled between Christmas and New Year’s Day – to see it happen.
“It’s amazing. It’s been a long time coming,” Schofield said. “When I first came here, that was one of my goals, to build a basketball culture and have some excitement about our program. I wanted to be competitive, compete for championships like we are doing. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come as a program just by the hard work we’ve put it and how much room we have to grow as a program. There’s a lot of things we haven’t checked off the box – SEC tournament, NCAA champions, regular-season champions officially (without being a) co-champion – so there’s a lot of things to improve on, but at the same time that’s not our focus. Our focus is next week, preparing for Georgia and then after Georgia, whoever comes after that.
“It’s one day at a time, one game at a time, not looking ahead.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.