Given its dominance over the last three games, maybe Tennessee was due for a sluggish performance – but the Vols limited it to just 20 minutes.

Seventh-ranked Tennessee – without leading scorer Santiago Vescovi for the second straight game – committed a plethora of mistakes as it struggled against Eastern Kentucky's press. The Vols committed 10 turnovers, shot 23.5% from the field and an even more bleak 13.3% from 3-point range in the first half on Wednesday night.

Then Tyreke Key took over.

Just days after Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes challenged the guard to be more aggressive on the offensive end, Key was a tone-setter in the opening minutes of the second half – scoring seven points less than three minutes in to up the Vols' lead to 21 en route to a 84-49 win at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Tennessee (8-1) has now won 22 straight games on its home floor.

Key led in scoring with 17 points while Julian Phillips notched 16 and Uros Plavsic finished with 13. Tennessee shot 61.5% from the field and 50.0% from beyond the arc in the second half.

Phillip turned in a double-double with 10 rebounds.

EKU (4-5) opened up 5-0 lead to start off with layup from Cooper Robb and a Michael Moreno 3-pointer. Tennessee didn't get on the board until Julian Phillips scored at the 17:58 mark.

The Vols took their first lead a little less than nine minutes in with a Key three, but the Colonels continued to match them step-for-step until Tennessee used a 7-0 run to take a 10-point lead.

Tennessee was unable to build on that lead during a rough stretch near the end of the half. The Vols went just 1-of-8 from the field in nine attempts at the same time the Colonels were in a four minute scoring drought, which kept them within striking distance at the half.

Key provided the jolt Tennessee needed offensively to pull away in the second half.

The Vols again got big performances in the paint from Olivier Nkamhoua and Jonas Aidoo. It was Nkamhoua, who finished with 10 points, that made one of the plays of the night when he went high and dunked off an inbounds pass to up the lead to 46-23.

Phillips later added an impressive slam of his own on a putback that answered an EKU score and swelled Tennessee's advantage to a commanding 58-33.

On the defensive end, Nkamhoua accounted for three of the team's eight blocks. Tennessee held EKU shooters to just 22.1% from the field and 17.1% from deep for the game. The Colonels' top scorer – Devontae Blanton – entered the contest averaging 17.8 points per game, but the Vols held him to just four points.

Tennessee next turns its attention to a crucial two-game non-conference stretch against No. 13 Maryland at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Sunday (4:30 p.m., FS1) and No. 10 Arizona in its first true road game of the season on December 17 at 10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

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