LEXINGTON, Ky. — Josiah-Jordan James scored a career-high 26 points to lead No. 5 Tennessee basketball team to a 103-92 victory
over No. 10 Kentucky on Saturday night at Rupp Arena.
In the end, the fifth-year guard shot 9 of 18 from the field, 4 of 9 from three, and 4 of 4 from the free throw line. In his 31 minutes of
play, he added five rebounds, two steals, and an assist. With a plus/minus of +12, he was the team’s second-best player.
Zakai Zeigler, a junior point guard, recorded his second double-double of the year with 26 points and a season-high 13 assists. Zeigler
is the only Tennessee player in the last 25 seasons to record 25 points and 10 assists in a game, and the second player to do it during
“Well, I’m not sure if you were expecting anything else, but he’s been a major component of this program ever since he set foot on
campus. And the thing I adore about him—I’ve mentioned this before—is that he had trouble in practice when Jordan (Gainey) was
having a little bit of a slump. However, we’ve got some very excellent practice work over the past two days. And Josiah resumed his
violent behavior. We also informed the boys that we would not be idling around and letting Dalton (Knecht) handle the work. We have
an excess of talented players. We’re not going to do that, I said. I said to those guys, “Simply put, we want you to follow our lead.”
“And our boys gave a fantastic effort today against—you guys know how much I like John, his program, and his players. We also knew
that they would be a very challenging team to stop. You were aware that they could start. I believed that I was the greatest player to
have come out of Hickory until tonight. But tonight, that became very public. Rob Dillingham was outstanding. He was outstanding.
However, we simply had a fantastic team victory. Talk about it, Zakai (Zeigler) and all of us, I felt Tobe (Awaka)’s minutes were crucial
during a period when they were really hitting us over the head with the glass.
But is Josiah surprising me? We’ve experienced a lot with those guys, so our senior guys shouldn’t have surprised me. I felt that
tonight’s event was incredibly, really significant.
“Once more, it’s important that we play quickly. We also informed them that the game would be very different from the prior two
games we played—low possession. played for two teams with lesser possession. Naturally, Kentucky is a very quick team that keeps up
with it. So do we. We so made a concerted effort to focus on transition defense, but we still didn’t want them to leave and start playing
right away. However, we also said, “Hey, we want to do what we do. Come on down.”
Indeed, I have no idea why we even get to that stage. That hasn’t been our style as a squad. And (Knecht) can go do it, clearly.
Furthermore, he will engage in some of it throughout a few games this season. However, I also believe Kentucky did a good job of
guarding. And that’s something he’s going to have to deal with throughout the season. John, in my opinion, had a brilliant strategy to
force him to defend as much as possible. And he did a great job of putting him in some of their desired mismatches. And to (Knecht)
all of this is fresh. And he has a shot as long as he keeps growing, which he has already done.
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