No. 5 Tennessee is at home and looking to avoid a regular season sweep at the hands of in-state foe Vanderbilt when the programs meet Saturday in Knoxville.
Tennessee (20-5, 7-5 Southeastern Conference) is coming off a 75-64 loss to Kentucky on Wednesday, as the Wildcats became the first, and so far only, team to win both matchups against the Vols this season.
One way for Tennessee to avoid a similar fate against Vanderbilt is to get leading scorer Chaz Lanier to rebound from a rough game. Lanier, who averages 17.4 points per game, was held to 10 points Wednesday on an inefficient 3-of-13 shooting.
Zakai Zeigler has carried the load lately for Tennessee. He is averaging a team-high 18.3 points over the Volunteers’ last three games, including a 21-point outing in an 85-81 win over Missouri last week.
Zeigler is scoring 13.0 points, leads the team with 7.5 assists and is tied for 30th nationally with 2.08 steals per game. Igor Milicic Jr. (11.0 points) has scored at least 16 points in three of his past four games, with 8.0 rebounds and 3.3 assists in that stretch.
“(Milicic) is the guy that we need to be the most consistent guy on the court, both offensively and defensively,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “… I think he’s going to get better. We’re down to seven or eight games, and then we’ve got the postseason, so there’s a lot of time to improve. We need every one of our guys on our team to get better.”
Vanderbilt (17-7, 5-6) has lost three of its last four games, while going just 2-4 overall since its 76-75 victory at home over Tennessee on Jan. 18.
The Commodores are led by Jason Edwards and Devin McGlockton. Edwards averages a team-high 17.4 points and McGlockton averages a team-high 8.1 rebounds while being the team’s No. 2 scorer at 11.2 points.
Vanderbilt is coming off an 80-68 loss to No. 1 Auburn on Tuesday. The Commodores led 49-48 with 14:14 to play before Auburn went on a 15-4 run to take control of the game.
It was similar to Vanderbilt’s loss to then-No. 6 Florida on Feb. 4 when the Commodores held a lead into the second half before crumbling late.
“This is a tough one,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “We’re winning in the second half (at Florida). We’re playing this (against Auburn) and we’re winning in the second half. We’re not that far away. There’s some things that we need to fix, and we don’t have as much room for error as a team like Auburn, but we can play with them.”
Vanderbilt is 2-4 against ranked opponents in the SEC this season and a fifth loss came against Missouri, which was unranked at the time but has been consistently in the polls since.
The Commodores’ worst league loss of the season occurred Feb. 1, a 97-67 rout by Oklahoma that knocked Vandy out of the Associated Press Top 25.
–Field Level Media
