Four quick thoughts on a win

Tennessee returned from a 10 day lay-off and easily handled visiting Georgia Tech 81-58. Here are four quick takes on what turned out to be an easy afternoon for the Vols.

Youth movement — Tennessee opened the day with three freshmen in the starting line-up; John Fulkerson, Grant Williams and Jordan Bowden. All three gave the Vols got solid production. Fulkerson gave his squad a noticeable lift with some hustle plays in the early going. He was active all day long and finished with 14 points and eight rebounds to lead the Vols in that department.

Williams had a career-high 14 points in 20 minutes of action. He also looked much more comfortable and effective on the defensive end than he has to this point and was a big reason the Vols held Georgia Tech to just 32.7% shooting in the game.

Bowden scored five points in 22 minutes of work and made one of the Vols four three pointers on the day.

This team is obviously going to need its youngsters to produce, so getting that kind of production out of Williams and Fulkerson in the paint was a positive sign.

Play-making and a little ball security — Tennessee entered the game with 77 turnovers and just 65 assists, an ugly stat. The Vols were marginally better in these areas today but there’s still obviously plenty of room for improvement.

Tennessee still had 16 turnovers in the game, a little too high to be ideal, but the playmaking was much better than it has been of late. The Vols finished with 18 assists on 28 made baskets. The main instigator on offense for much of the day was Shembari Phillips. With Jordan Bone out, Phillips got a lot of run at point guard and handled his business.

Phillips was nicely efficient, finishing with 14 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the floor. He made 2-of-2 from three-point range, 4-of-4 from three-point range and led the team with seven assists and just one turnover. That was a strong performance and one the Vols needed with the point guard situation still somewhat unclear.

Shooting/defense — Tennessee shot the lights out in this one, particularly in the first half when they made 56% from the field on their way to taking control of the game and building a 42-25 halftime lead.

The Vols took advantage of that hot shooting by throttling Georgia Tech on the other end. The Yellow Jackets were awful from the field, especially early. The visitors made just 24% of there shots in the first half. More remarkably, Tech was 4-of-7 from three point range in the first half but just 3-of-22 on two point attempts.

For the game Tennessee shot 53%. Perhaps most impressively, the Vols were 6-of-11 from three-point range. The Vols didn’t force bad shots from long range and took advantage of the good looks that came their way.

For the game the Yellow Jackets were held to just 32% shooting and the Vols forced 19 turnovers which were turned into 20 points.

Better starts — The Vols have had trouble getting off to solid starts, both at the beginning of games and to start the second half. That wasn’t an issue today. Tennessee jumped on top of Georgia Tech in the early going, building a double digit lead quickly in the first half.

It was the same story in the second half. Holding a 17 point lead, it would hardly have been a surprise if the Vols came out with a little less intensity. That wasn’t the case at all.

The Vols opened the second halve with a 17-6 run that pushed their lead out to 59-31 with 14:21 left in the game, essentially ending any hope of a comeback.