AUSTIN, Texas – The University of Tennessee men’s basketball team claimed a hard-fought 74-70 road victory Saturday night at Texas.
Senior guard Zakai Zeigler paced top-ranked Tennessee (15-1, 2-1 SEC) with 16 points and a game-high eight assists in triumph during which neither side led by greater than seven in front of a near-capacity crowd of 10,195 the Moody Center.
Both teams got off to slow starts offensively, but the Volunteers used a 9-0 run in 2:42 to grab a six-point edge, 17-11, at the 8:51 mark of the first half. They held Texas (11-5, 0-4 SEC) scoreless for three-plus minutes, their second time doing so in the opening stanza, along with the initial 3:11.
The Longhorns countered with a 13-2 burst in 2:17, capped with eight straight points in 67 seconds, to go ahead by five, 24-19, with 6:15 left in the frame. Tennessee answered soon thereafter by holding the home team without a point for three-plus minutes yet again, a stretch during which it tallied eight consecutive points in 2:03 to grab a 30-26 advantage with 1:48 left before the break.
After the Longhorns beat the shot-clock buzzer with a basket, senior guard senior guard Zakai Zeigler hit a 3-pointer to make it an 11-2 surge in 3:14 and put Tennessee up by five, 33-28, with 37 ticks to play in the frame. Texas freshman guard Tre Johnson then drilled a 3-pointer of his own, cutting the margin to two, 33-31, at the intermission.
The Volunteers went 6-of-11 (54.5 percent) from deep in the opening 20 minutes, with one of the misses coming at the horn, while the Longhorns tallied a 4-of-13 (30.8 percent) clip. The visitors, though, committed 10 turnovers and forced only four.
Following back-and-forth action early in the second half, Texas matched its largest lead of the evening by going in front, 54-49, with 9:22 remaining. The Longhorns then missed eight field goals in a row and Tennessee leveled the score at 56 on a putback dunk by fifth-year guard Darlinstone Dubar with 6:24 to go.
Shortly thereafter, Dubar drilled a corner 3-pointer with 3:57 on the timer to put the Volunteers up by one, 61-60. Junior forward Felix Okpara slammed home a second-chance dunk on the next possession, 48 seconds later, to make it 63-60. Senior guard Jordan Gainey then knocked down a corner 3-pointer 28 seconds after that to push the margin to six, 66-60, with 2:41 left, concluding an 8-0 surge in 78 seconds.
Texas sliced the deficit down to three, 66-63, with 1:30 to play, but Zeigler responded with a buzzer-beating layup and then, after a defensive stop, a pair of free throws to give the Volunteers a game-high seven-point lead, 70-63, with 32.2 seconds remaining.
The Longhorns twice closed the deficit to five, but Tennessee went 6-of-8 at the line in the final 33 seconds and maintained a seven-point lead in the closing moments. Texas hit a 3-pointer with 5.4 seconds left to cut it to four and did not foul after the Volunteers inbounded, sealing the decision.
Zeigler scored 13 of his 16 points in the final 15 minutes, including six in the last minute. The Long Islabd, N.Y., native went 6-of-7 at the stripe and had twice as many assists as any other player on either side.
Dubar finished one point shy of his season high with 12, nine of which came in the last 14 minutes, and he added a season-best six rebounds. He shot 3-of-5 from 3-point range, his first time making multiple long-range shots as a Volunteer, and played a season-high 17 minutes, finishing with a game-best plus-eight margin.
Gainey logged 12 points, while fifth-year guard Chaz Lanier added 10 in the victory. Okpara totaled seven points to go along with game highs in rebounds (nine) and blocks (three), the latter of which all came in the last 10 minutes.
Johnson paced all scorers with 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting for the Longhorns. He started with 24 points on 10-of-13 through 29 minutes, at which point the rest of the team had 26 points on 10-of-30 shooting. Tennessee held him to a 1-of-4 mark the rest of the way to turn a then-four-point deficit into a four-point win.
Graduate student guard Tramon Mark posted 17 points for Texas, while junior guard Jordan Pope chipped in 10.
Tennessee went 10-of-23 (43.5 percent) from 3-point range, including 8-of-14 in the first 27 minutes before missing six straight and then hitting two of its last three in the last four minutes.
At the other end, the Volunteers held limited Texas to a 7-of-25 (28.0 percent) long-range ledger, including a 3-of-17 mark by everyone other than Johnson.
The victors recorded a 28-9 margin in bench points, a 28-16 cushion in paint points and a 17-10 tally in second-chance points to counteract Texas’ 21-8 mark in points off turnovers.
With the Volunteers’ largest lead seven and the Longhorns’ just five, the entire game was played within a 12-point window. It marked just the eighth time this season, per KenPom, a Power Five conference game was played within a dozen points from start to finish. Tennessee led for 15:09 and Texas for 13:42, while the game was tied for 11:09.
After back-to-back road games, the Volunteers now host Georgia, with tip-off slated for Wednesday at 8 p.m., live on SEC Network from Food City Center.
