Meet college basketball’s new road warriors: the Tennessee Volunteers.
After going deep into January before achieving their first road victory of the season, the Vols now have two straight following Wednesday night’s 86-85 overtime win over Georgia inside Stegeman Coliseum. Tennessee got its first road triumph with Saturday night’s 79-73 topping of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and the Vols improved to 14-6 overall and to 4-3 in Southeastern Conference games with their latest win.
“This is huge for us,” Tennessee senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie said on the Vol Network after his 21-point performance. “I felt like we were in a hole with that loss to Kentucky, which was a bad home loss, so we knew we had to come make a statement with these back-to-back road games, and I think we made a statement.”
Gillespie also had six assists and played the final 3:44 of regulation and the entire overtime with four fouls. Freshman forward Nate Ament added 19 points and six rebounds for Tennessee, while redshirt sophomore forward J.P. Estrella racked up 17 points and nine boards in his second career start.
Vols sophomore guard Bishop Boswell had 13 points and 10 rebounds, notching his second double-double in the past four games, while senior forward Felix Okpara scored six points and grabbed 11 rebounds. Tennessee outrebounded Georgia by a whopping 52-27 advantage.