KNOXVILLE – For a night, everything came together for the Tennessee men’s basketball team.
Actually, it was both Tuesday night and the previous Saturday afternoon.
What the Volunteers’ past two games – wins against Kentucky, 81-73 in Lexington, and Florida, 63-58 in Knoxville – will mean for them in the long run remains to be seen. But coach Rick Barnes’ fifth Tennessee team, a combination of career role players and inexperienced freshmen, seems to be figuring things out at the right time.
The latest evidence provided by the Vols (17-13, 9-8 Southeastern Conference) came in the upset of sixth-ranked Kentucky at Rupp Arena, where the Wildcats – who had an eight-game overall winning streak snapped – had not lost since early November.
Tennessee’s recipe for success in recent games has been simple: Ride redshirt junior John Fulkerson on the interior, get quality production from Yves Pons and hope a couple of the Vols’ guards can piece together some quality minutes.