Tennessee stays perfect at home under Pearl

Tennessee overcame fatigue and poor shooting to beat the Bisons 69-58 Thursday night and keep its home record perfect so far with new coach Bruce Pearl.

C.J. Watson scored 18 points, including nine free throws down the stretch that sealed it, and Major Wingate added 13 points and Stanley Asumnu had 11 for the Vols (8-1). Chris Lofton, the team’s leading scorer at 18.4 points a game, was held to six points from two 3-pointers in the first half.

“They were extremely prepared and did a really nice job themselves defensively, but when you hold an opponent to 30 percent shooting and force them to turn it over 21 times, I think that says a little something about the effort,” Pearl said.

Lipscomb (5-5) last played on Dec. 19 while Tennessee hosted Alabama A&M on Tuesday.

The Vols shot 21-of-55 from the field, and the Bisons were 20-of-56. Tennessee had 12 steals.

“We think we are a good team defensively,” said Lipscomb coach Scott Sanderson, who is the son of former Alabama coach Wimp Sanderson.

“We did a good job on Chris Lofton, but I told our coaches at the 10-minute mark we were too tired to get over the hump.”

Tennessee is the third Southeastern Conference opponent for Lipscomb this season. The Bisons lost 67-49 at Kentucky and 69-54 at Auburn.

This game was in doubt late. The Vols led by 10 with 6:36 left, but a basket by Cameron Robinson and a 3 by Brian Fisk cut it to 57-52.

Then Watson took over at the foul line, making 9 of 10 free throws in the final 3:48 as the Vols were able to pull away. Watson was 13-of-14 from the line for the game.

The Bisons led in the first half and trailed by only two points early in the second.

The loss overshadowed the performance by Lipscomb’s Eddie Ard, who scored a career-high 24 points. He had 22 against Kentucky and was averaging a team-high 13.7 points a game. Fisk finished with 19 points.

Tennessee opened the second half with a 10-2 run to go ahead 37-28.

Lipscomb trimmed the lead to a basket twice afterward, but the Vols started to find easy baskets with a backward dunk by JaJuan Smith off a steal and Wingate’s slam for a 48-40 lead with 12:08 to go.

The Vols led by nine early in the first half, but Lipscomb used a 13-3 run to go ahead. James Poindexter, Ard and Trey Williams hit consecutive 3-pointers to cap the rally. Tennessee responded with a 7-0 run to regain the lead, and Lipscomb fought back with its own 7-0 spurt.

The Bisons maintained the lead until the final 10 seconds before halftime when Watson’s pair of free throws gave the lead back to the Vols.

The Vols again drew a large crowd. Attendance at Tuesday’s game was 15,797, and officials said 15,967 was the attendance Thursday. Tennessee had not had more than 15,000 in attendance at a home game during the holiday break since 1994.