11/25/2022 basketball Edit

Tennessee beats Kansas, wins Battle 4 Atlantis finale

Tennessee's bench celebrates during the Vols' win over Kansas on Friday. (USA TODAY Sports)

Noah Taylor • VolReport

Managing Editor

Noah is a graduate of the UT College of Journalism & Electronic Media and has covered Tennessee football since 2019. He joined Rivals in 2022.

Tennessee faced its biggest test of its early season slate and aced it.

The No. 22 Vols never trailed as Santiago Vescovi starred in an impressive 64-50 win over No. 3 Kansas to claim the Battle 4 Atlantis championship in The Bahamas on Friday night.

Vescovi hit five 3-pointers and notched a game-high 20 points points while freshman Julian Phillips turned in another strong performance with 13 points. Jonas Aidoo also scored 13 points and Tyreke Key and Zakai Zeigler each tallied 10 points.

The win also snapped a 17-game win streak for Kansas.

Tennessee jumped out early and didn't look back, taking a 7-0 lead before Kansas scored its first points.

The Jayhawks (6-1) pulled within 5 in the closing minutes of the first half, but Olivier Nkamhoua answered with a 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds left to up the Vols' lead to 33-25 at halftime.

Kansas cut into the Tennessee lead again in second half, making it a 3-point game 37-34 after a Joseph Yesufu 3-pointer just over five minutes into the period, but that's as close at the Jayhawks would get.

Vescovi hit a pair of 3-pointers of his own to kickstart a dominating close for the Vols. Tennessee swelled its lead to doubled digits as Zeigler and Key also started to heat up from beyond the arc and, forcing Kansas to try and play catch-up the rest of the way.

As a team, Tennessee shot more than 44% from deep and 41.5% from the field.

Just as they did in the first two games of the tournament against Butler and USC, the Vols' defense was stifling, limiting Kansas to 23.8% 3-point shooting and 32.1% from the field while forcing 16 turnovers.

Tennessee returns to Knoxville on Nov. 30 against McNeese State at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tip-off is set for 7:15 p.m. on the SEC Network.

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