It wasn't flashy and It didn't have the theatrics of the thriller Tennessee won at Texas A&M a few days before.

But what the No. 5 Vols did against LSU last Tuesday night was a performance that kept their hopes of a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament alive, and showed the other ways they can win at time in the season where it matters most.

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Tennessee beat the Tigers in a 65-59 rock fight at Pete Maravich Center--a reversal of the prolific and record-breaking shooting it used to knock off the then-top 10 Aggies on the road over the weekend.

The Vols (23-5, 10-5 SEC) shot just 27.3% from three-point range. Chaz Lanier, who made a career-high eight 3-pointers against Texas A&M, made half of the team's shots from the perimeter with three.

Where Tennessee decided this one was in the paint. That's where the Vols out-rebounded and out-scored the Tigers, 44-28 and 32-20, respectively while scoring 27 second-chance points.

"We felt coming in that was our No. 1 emphasis," Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. "That we had to get to the offensive board, had to get to the lane as much as we could."

The Vols made a living there.

Zakai Zeigler scored 17 points, most of which came off of drives and 6-foot-11 center Felix Okpara finished with 15 on 6-of-6 field goal shooting and grabbed seven rebounds.

Lanier totaled 14 points, but what he did on the boards was the headliner. He had a team-high nine rebounds, finishing one shy of a double-double, providing something to the lineup he wasn't three months ago.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Everything Rick Barnes said after Tennessee's win at LSU

"Chaz is more than a shooter," Barnes said. "We know he's a terrific standstill, spot-up shooter. But when he wants to drive the ball, he's proven he can do that. And the fact that you mentioned his rebounding, that's something he didn't do very much of at the beginning of the year. And he's trying to impact the game in different ways."

The biggest development for Tennessee being able to win a league game on the road in late February was doing it in a tough, knockdown, drag-out style.

The Vols will have to be better offensively, too. But that style of basketball has worked to their advantage before. They've been able to drag teams into the mud themselves and win.

Tennessee did something similar to Alabama in the last two meeting between the two teams, winning both because it was the more physical team.

Now, the Vols are preparing to face the No. 6 Crimson Tide (23-5, 12-3) again on Saturday in their return to Food City Center for the first time in two weeks (4 p.m. ET, ESPN) in a game with major NCAA Tournament seeding implications.

"This has been a fun group of guys to coach," Barnes said. "They like each other. We've had different guys have to slide into different roles...But these guys, they're very unselfish. They want to be good."

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