Darlinstone Duabr came crashing down to the floor at the Moody Center. Then he sprung back up.

As he watched the ball that had just left his finger tips sink through the net with the clock ticking inside of four minutes, he turned around toward and looked at the suddenly quieted Texas crowd.

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Dubar had provided No. 1 Tennessee with a spark off the bench. Now he had provided it the lead--for good.

The Hofstra transfer made the kind of plays in the Vols' 74-70 win in Austin Saturday night that they can look back on in March as one of the defining performances of their season.

Dubar's 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from the field and three 3-pointers and six rebounds in 17 critical minutes were paramount in a much-needed bounce back triumph from Tennessee (15-1, 2-1 SEC), which responded to a historic 30-point loss at Florida four days earlier with a gutsy, get-right performance.

"It was huge. (Dubar) came in and he was really locked in and did a lot of great things," Vols' head coach Rick Barnes said. "It was a hard game. Any time you go on the road, it's hard. You play at home, it's hard. Coming off the loss the other night, I really appreciate the way they kept their focus. Went about their preparation the way we tried to do things."

Up to that point, it was Texas that appeared to be one or two shots away from ending it.

The Longhorns (11-5, 0-3) benefited from 15 Tennessee turnovers, 10 of which came in the first half. Their lead was only five with less than 10 minutes left, but given the Vols' inability to sustain possessions without giving the ball away, one more run might have done them in.

With its best rebounder in Igor Milicic Jr. and top defender Jahmai Mashack on the bench with foul trouble, and leading scorer Chaz Lanier struggling, Tennessee needed some heroics.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Everything Rick Barnes said after No. 1 Tennessee beat Texas

It found it in Dubar.

“You just have to stick with it,” Dubar said. “Keep the main thing the main thing. Chop wood, carry water. Everyday is the same. There’s highs and lows. You’ve just got to keep going. Keep playing hard and believing in yourself.”

There were other heroics, too.

Though the transfers have each had their moments—Milicic’s 18 rebounds and Lanier’s 29 points vs. Arkansas, Dubar’s go-ahead 3-pointer at Texas—it was the Vols’ most familiar face that put it away.

With the clock approaching a minute, Zakai Zeigler gathered in a pass from Lanier and glanced up at the shot-clock. It was at three seconds.

Zeigler decided to drive with two Longhorns defenders matching him step-for-step. He switched the ball over to his right hand and laid the ball in over Tre Johnson. He beat the shot clock, and Tennessee’s lead was six.

There was no one else that Barnes would have rather had the ball in that moment.

“We just put them there and said, we're going to space the floor and let the little guy go,” Barnes said. “And he did it."

“Every time we’ve played Texas it’s been a tough game, a gritty game,” Zeigler said. “It’s came down to execution…Coming into the game, we knew that’s what it was going to be and that’s what it turned out to be.

“It’s really good that we bounced back with this win, but we’ve got to keep getting better.”

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