KNOXVILLE – Seventh heaven?
A perfect 10?
Either phrase works for the Tennessee Volunteers, who turned back Vanderbilt 73-64 on Saturday night in front of 20,019 fans inside Thompson-Boling Arena for their seventh consecutive Southeastern Conference triumph and their 10th straight win over the in-state Commodores. Zakai Zeigler scored 16 points and John Fulkerson 12 in reserve roles for the No. 19 Vols, whose bench outscored Vanderbilt’s bench 36-7.
Tennessee improved to 18-6 overall and 9-3 in SEC play heading into Tuesday night’s mammoth showdown against Kentucky (21-4, 10-2) in Knoxville, while the Commodores dropped to 13-11, 5-7.
“I just want to win games,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said when asked about the streaks. “I haven’t thought about how many in a row we’ve won. You can’t live in the past. We’ll scrub this one out and get ready for the next one.”
Tennessee’s last 10-game surge at Vanderbilt’s expense occurred during the 1978-82 seasons.
“I didn’t know that we’ve beaten them 10 times in a row, but that’s good,” said Fulkerson, the sixth-year senior. “I might be the only player who’s played them 10 times in a row.”
Zeigler’s 16 points came on 5-of-10 shooting, including 3-of-5 from 3-point range. The 5-foot-9, 167-pound freshman from Long Island also amassed five assists and two steals while committing no turnovers in more than 27 minutes, with only Josiah-Jordan James logging more time on the floor for the Vols.
Starting point guard Kennedy Chandler was scoreless and playing with four fouls as Tennessee nursed a 63-59 lead with a little more than four minutes remaining. Chandler then ignited the game-clinching spurt, collecting a putback basket, a layup off an assist from Zeigler and a reverse layup off an assist from Fulkerson that suddenly gave the Vols a 10-point bulge at 69-59.
“I thought Kennedy played a little tired tonight and wasn’t pushing the ball the way we needed him to,” Barnes said. “In the end, he showed the burst that we needed him to play with. We need that from him, and we need it on both ends.
“The guards were the ones who made the big plays for us down the stretch.”
A Zeigler 3-pointer with 17:04 remaining had Tennessee in control at 50-34, but Vanderbilt countered with an 11-0 run to pull within five. The Commodores then climbed within 52-51 on a Scotty Pippen Jr. jumper at the 11:34 mark, but a three-point play by Fulkerson stretched the lead back to 55-51.
Chandler, Vescovi and Pippen, who scored a game-high 23 points, spent much of the night in foul trouble, with each picking up four fouls but never fouling out. Vescovi picked up his fourth with 9:17 left and sat for nearly four minutes.
“We came out in the second half just looking at the scoreboard and seeing that we were up 12,” Zeigler said. “We were like, ‘We got this. We ain’t got anything to worry about.’ They hit us hard, and we knew we had to lock in and do what we had to do.”
Tennessee took some control within the game’s first six minutes, when a Zeigler 3-pointer and a pair of Zeigler free throws provided a 17-8 advantage. A Jahmai Mashack layup off a Zeigler assist extended the lead to 36-24 with 4:35 before halftime, and the Vols took a 44-32 lead into intermission after committing just four first-half turnovers.
A Vescovi 3-pointer opened the second half scoring to give Tennessee its largest lead to that point at 47-32.
For a second straight game, the Vols went with the starting quintet of Chandler, Vescovi, James, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Uros Plavsic. It was the second career start for Huntley-Hatfield, who for a second straight contest accounted for the game’s first basket.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.