KNOXVILLE - John Fulkerson blocked the shot and James Daniel scooped it up and dropped it behind his back to Admiral Schofield, who dunked it with authority as a sold-out crowd at Thompson-Boling Arena offered a collective "Ooomph!"
First-half leads were not working out, so Tennessee attempted a new method Saturday night against 17th-ranked Kentucky.
The No. 23 Volunteers flopped in the first half and roared back in the second for a crucial 76-65 Southeastern Conference victory, capped by Schofield's emphatic slam with 23 seconds left.
After shooting 8-of-24 from the field in the first half, Tennessee was 17-of-31 in the second half to erase a 37-29 halftime deficit and avoid falling to 0-3 in SEC play. It was Tennessee's third win in its last four home games against the Wildcats.
Schofield tipped in a Grant Williams miss with 2:03 remaining and was fouled in the process. He hit the free throw and Tennessee matched its largest lead of the night at 72-61.
Tennessee teetered on the brink of double-digit leads late, but nothing came easily against the Wildcats.
There was a starter battling the flu on one side, cramping and foul trouble on the other and a combined four technical fouls in the drama-filled game.
Tensions reached their apex early in the second half. Williams tied it at 39 with a hook shot over Kentucky forward Wenyen Gabriel with 17:25 to go. Williams immediately picked up his third foul on the defensive end and checked out with 17:17 remaining.
The call raised the ire of Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, who turned red in the face while yelling at the officiating crew as boos rained down from the crowd of 21,678. Play stopped and both Barnes and counterpart John Calipari were given technical fouls.
Eventually, the officiating evened out. Gabriel fouled out with 11:58 remaining, and Kentucky's starting shooting guard Hamidou Diallo followed a few minutes later. Depth has been a concern this season for Kentucky, which has used an eight-man rotation while Jarred Vanderbilt and Jemarl Baker work back from injuries. With Gabriel and Diallo fouled out and PJ Washington battling cramps in the second half, the Wildcats lacked the energy late to make a run.
"As soon as we had PJ out of the game, we had no shot at winning," Calipari said.
Tennessee starting point guard Jordan Bone played just two minutes in the second half as he battled the flu.
Kentucky's length bothered Tennessee in the first half.
When the third media timeout of the first half arrived with 7:31 to play, the Wildcats led 24-15, and Tennessee had made only five shots from the field. Those shots were a pair of contested jumpers by Schofield, a jumper and a layup by Kyle Alexander and a relatively open 3-pointer from Bone that prompted Calipari to thrust his arms out in disgust towards the defender who allowed Bone a moment of daylight.
Aside from Alexander, Tennessee's bigs struggled mightily in the first half. Williams, UT's leading scorer, went 0-for-4 from the field with a pair of turnovers in 18 first-half minutes. When freshman Derrick Walker checked in with 13:43 left in the half, he checked out less than two minutes later with three turnovers to his name. Fulkerson played four first-half minutes but struggled to defend Kentucky's size.
Williams made seven of nine shots in the second half while Fulkerson worked from the high post against Kentucky's zone defense. Tennessee capitalized with lobs to the rim, even over the taller Kentucky defenders who had bothered the Vols in the first half.
Daniel found Williams for an alley-oop layup as the shot clock expired with 6:18 remaining to give the Vols their biggest lead at the time, 64-53.
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.