If Alabama A&M was hoping to catch Tennessee in the middle of some holiday lethargy coming off a loss to Oklahoma State the last time out and in the first game back after Christmas, they were disappointed. Tennessee took the Bulldogs best shot in the first half, beat them back and then blew them out in the second half on their way to a 93-68 win.

The win moves Tennessee to 7-1 on the season with two more non-conference games before SEC play begins next week.

This was the first opportunity that Pearl had to see how his team would bounce back after a loss, and he was pleased with the results. Tennessee executed as well as it has in the halfcourt all year long, the result being that the Vols ended up with a plethora of open looks at the basket and capitalized to the tune of hitting 55.4 percent of their shots from the floor, their best shooting percentage of the season.

That efficiency was evident not only in the shooting percentage, but also in the turnover department. The Vols had only nine miscues against 28 assists, a phenomenal ratio.

Tennessee got strong performances from some of the usual suspects, putting four players in double-figures, led by Chris Lofton with 19 points. C.J. Watson had 16 points, JaJuan Smith added a career-high 16 of his own off the bench and Stanley Asumnu notched 15 points. Andre Patterson got his first start of the season in place of Major Wingate, and responded by leading the team with 14 rebounds while chipping in nine points.

One of the most positive aspects of the team's surprising start has been the fact that so many different players have been contributing, and tonight was no different. The Vols' depth has been getting steadily better, and the emergence of players like Smith and Asumnu as consistent offensive threats has been a key.

"There were some unbelievable stat lines tonight. JaJuan shoots a great percentage tonight with five assists, no turnovers and two steals, and with the exception of no defensive rebounds, just had a great night," Pearl said of the myriad of players making an impact.

"One of the things that we want to try and get to, and I don't know that we're there yet, but we try to talk about having too many weapons. When you've got balance like we had, and I thought everyone played well off the bench; I thought Jordan Howell played well off the bench, Ryan Childress played well off the bench and then you've got Major and JaJuan coming off the bench, all of the sudden you're starting to build something. We've made some progress there."

Both teams were sharp in the early going, but after jumping out to a 9-2 lead, the Vols were just a little bit sharper in the first 20 minutes on their way to building a 45-32 halftime lead.

Alabama A&M played tough and efficient, but Tennessee, with some opportunistic defense and hot shooting from the perimeter, never really let them have an opportunity to threaten after jumping out to the early lead.

Several times in the first half the Bulldogs were one bad Tennessee possession and a score from making it a two or three point game, but each time they crept within striking distance the Vols had an answer, usually in the form of a Lofton three-pointer splashing through the bottom of the net.

The Vols' narrowest margin of the first half came at 9-8 after a 6-0 run by the Bulldogs, but Lofton and Watson connected on back-to-back three-pointers to push it to 15-8.

The visitors closed to 25-20 midway through the first half, but Lofton immediately hit from deep to make it 28-20, and after an Andre Patterson free throw, JuJuan Smith hit a three from the wing to give Tennessee its biggest lead of the game at that point at 32-20.

Smith gave the team a spark off the bench, was hot as soon as he entered the game and made the most of his opportunities, hitting six of nine shots, including two of four from three-point range.

"I'm feeling real comfortable right now. I'm looking at it like coach Pearl is looking forward to me coming off the bench and doing the things that I'm doing right now. I'm feeling real good right now about my role," Smith said of his career night.

The Bulldogs Joe Martin, who single-handedly kept the game competitive with 17 first half points, drilled a three pointer of his own to slice it back to single-digits at 32-23, then cut it to seven at 35-28 with a driving lay-up before Lofton went on a one-man explosion just before intermission, scoring 10 of the Vols' final 12 points before the break.

He hit one three pointer from the top of the key to make it 38-28 and then bottomed out what was just an absurd fade-away from the corner with a man in his face on the next possession to push it to 41-28.

Lofton got the game's next score in transition, flipping the ball back over his head and off the glass with a defender draped all over him to make the score 43-30, and then for good measure he dropped a nifty little assist to Asumnu for a transition lay-up to make the halftime score 45-32.

Ironically, Lofton didn't notch a field goal in the second half, getting his only two points at the free throw line, but the competitive portion of the game ended early in the second half even with him cooling off after 17 first half points.

It didn't take long for the Vols to push the lead up to 20, at the 16:12 mark to be exact and once that happened, a lot of the fight seemed to come out of the Bulldogs. Play got a little sloppy, and open shots were plentiful for Tennessee as defense became less and less of a priority for visitors.

The lead crested at 30 when Watson hit a pull-up from 15-feet to make it 75-45 with 9:31 remaining in the contest, and Pearl emptied his bench with ample time remaining in the contest.

Pearl was pleased with his team's effort coming off the first loss of the season, but he seemed to save his biggest praise for the crowd, which was listed at 15,797.

"The number that jumps out to me tonight is 15,797. That's a great crowd at Christmas-time," Pearl observed. Our guys were excited about being home again, and to build a program, it takes a village. The marketing department has worked triple-overtime to get people in the seats. If we had not come out and played with the effort that we gave tonight, I would have been disappointed."

Pearl said following the game that Patterson got the start in Wingate's place tonight because the junior center was late getting back from the Vols' Christmas break.

"Major was late coming back from Christmas. There was a lot of weather coming back and he ran out of gas…I told him, 'Major, man, I've used that one myself, can't you be a little more original than that?' But he did," Pearl said.

"Nothing personal, but you have to be back because those are the rules and he lost his starting position tonight. He'll probably get it back."