December 31st, 2024 by 90.3 WUTK
by Jay King
KNOXVILLE, Tenn – The Tennessee Volunteers defeated the Norfolk State Spartans in a wire-to-wire victory 67-52 at the Food City Center. This is the last out-of-conference game, as SEC play starts this Saturday.
While the Vols never trailed this game, Norfolk State seemed to always keep it close, as their largest lead was by 20 with 2:30 left. Norfolk State kept it under 10 multiple times in the first half, and early in the second half. Christian Ings and Brian Moore Jr. both had a combined 37 points in a solid effort by the Spartans.
The leading scorer today was Chaz Lanier with 24 points with six 3-pointers made. He ended up attempting 16 of them, in total and Head Coach Rick Barnes said that Lanier took a couple of looks that weren’t the best early on in the game, but he did a good job closing out.
Cade Phillips and Zakai Zeigler both had great games, as Phillips had 10 points, six of which were on three different alley-oops, assisted by Zeigler, as well as five blocks. While Zeigler had 10 points and six assists. When asked about what made him valuable in the dunking role, Phillips said, “I don’t know it’s really all up to [Zakai] you know? I just hide out and [Zakai] does all the work.”
Tennessee’s next game will be this Saturday, January 4th versus the 23rd-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks at the Food City Center at 1 pm EST. The significance of this game is that last year’s starting center, Jonas Aidoo had transferred to the Razorbacks in the offseason. When asked about if there was bad blood between Aidoo and the Vols, Cade Phillips and Jordan Gainey both succinctly said “no.”