KNOXVILLE — Jordan Bowden has had his offensive struggles lately, but he and John Fulkerson made some late big plays to help Tennessee’s men’s basketball team to a 56-55 Southeastern Conference victory over South Carolina Saturday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Bowden made a crucial save off an errant in-bounds pass from Drew Pember and grabbed the ball just before it went out of bounds allowing time to expire.
Prior to Bowden’s big play that saved the ball and the win for Tennessee (10-5 overall, 2-1 in the SEC), Fulkerson took a late charge to give the Volunteers the opportunity to run out the clock and capture its first home conference win of the season.
In addition to standing his ground late, Fulkerson had a double-double, scoring 15 points and grabbing 10 rebounds (including eight defensive boards). He also had one of Tennessee’s season-high 11 blocked shots.
Defense was key for the Vols as they would win ugly in a game where UT went 15-for-54 from the field. They were also 6-for-31 from beyond the 3-point arc.
But Pember and Josiah-Jordan James had consecutive long-range jumpers to give the Big Orange a 51-44 lead with 7 minutes, 20 seconds left in the game.
Tennessee never trailed after that.
Santiago Vescovi scored 13 points and James added 10 for the Vols, who trailed 26-25 at halftime and endured multiple long scoring droughts.
The Gamecocks (8-7, 0-2 SEC) got 17 points from Maik Kotsar and 15 from Jermaine Couisnard.
Yves Pons blocked five shots for Tennessee, which travels to Georgia Wednesday night.