KNOXVILLE - "Peanut Butter and Jelly," meet "Thunder and Lightning."
The latter could be the nickname of the third-ranked Tennessee men's basketball's team latest standout duo, junior guards Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner.
The former is a reference to forward Grant Williams and guard Admiral Schofield, who developed their moniker while playing the soccer video game "FIFA," in reference to Williams bringing a "smoothness" to the court while Schofield contributed a "knock you out"-type of taste.
Tennessee's Lamonte Turner, shown during the Vols' win at Florida on Saturday, has been a star substitute along with fellow guard Jordan Bowden.The newest reference started Wednesday with a tweet from Turner to Bowden that simply read, "Thunder?" Bowden replied with "Lightning," followed by two eyeballs and a pair of question marks.
What wasn't questionable was the pair's play off the bench in the Volunteers' 106-87 home win over Arkansas on Tuesday night.
With Tennessee (15-1, 4-0 Southeastern Conference) starting slow, coach Rick Barnes put Bowden and Turner on the floor with the Vols leading 4-3 and 16:08 remaining in the first half. Bowden then scored five points and Turner four in a 16-3 run that helped Tennessee assume control of the game.
Bowden, who entering Wednesday was second in the SEC in scoring with an average of 19 points per contest, scored exactly that against the Razorbacks (10-6, 1-3) on 6-for-7 shooting, including 5-for-6 from 3-point range. Turner, in his fourth game back after missing time with a lingering shoulder problem, set his season high with 21 points, shooting 6-of-8 overall and 3-of-4 behind the arc.
The pair's combined 25 first-half points helped the Vols led 55-34 at the break, and their combined 40 points in the game helped Tennessee to a dominant 50-23 edge in points off the bench. That meant the Vols' starters scored just six more points than the substitutes against Arkansas.
"I thought in the first half they both played really good," Barnes said of Bowden and Turner after the game. "I thought they had a really great demeanor about themselves. I thought they were really trying to work. One of Lamonte's fouls he got was because the guy was dribbling by and he reached as opposed to moving his feet. He cannot move that far, it is too much of a straight line drive.
"I thought those guys did well."
Barnes has noted on several occasions that he looks at Bowden and Turner as starters, and at times they have been. Bowden, who has started 68 of his 81 games at Tennessee, lost his starting role because he had been struggling on offense. Since Turner returned, Bowden has averaged 19.0 points on 61 percent shooting from the field, which ranked third in the league and tops for a guard entering Wednesday.
While Turner only has six starts for the Vols, he has averaged more than 23 minutes per game during his Tennessee career and was the SEC's co-sixth man of the year last season. Since his return, he has averaged 12.0 points per game while shooting 58 percent from the field and 47 percent on 3-point attempts.
Late in tight games, both are typically on the court, especially with Turner fully healthy again.
"Who knows what we are going to do with the lineup going forward," Barnes said. "I do think some guys respond better sitting there during the game and coming in and doing some things. I like to think that when we go to the bench, we get better defensively. Offensively, we know we do."
And a lot of that is due to Thunder and Lightning.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.