University of Tennessee Athletics
University of Tennessee
3-5
Austin Peay
2-9
Vols Fall To Austin Peay, 74-70
December 10, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 10, 2011
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UTsports.com
KNOXVILLE -- Hot-shooting Austin Peay scored the game's final eight points and claimed its first-ever win over Tennessee, 74-70, Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena.
The Governors won for the second time in as many games after starting the season 0-9.
"Austin Peay did a good job of shooting the ball, especially in the second half," UT head coach Cuonzo Martin said. "(They scored) 27 points off turnovers and did a good job of speeding us up with pressure. We had six or seven unforced turnovers in the second half."
Tennessee (3-5) led by as many as 12 points in the second half and still owned a comfortable 64-53 advantage after Josh Richardson's driving layup with 6:27 remaining. But Austin Peay answered with a 9-0 run over the next 90 seconds and then closed the game with an 8-0 spurt to win for just the third time in school history against an SEC opponent.
Austin Peay entered Saturday 0-8 against Tennessee in the series dating to 1940.
"It was obviously a great game for us," Austin Peay head coach Dave Loos said. "This is really huge for us going forward. It's hard to explain. We had not been shooting it well."
But the Governors made 16 of their 22 second-half field goal attempts to finish the game a season-high 59.1 percent from the field (26 of 44).
Tennessee led 70-66 on Jordan McRae's right baseline jumper with 2:39 to play. Austin Peay then held the Vols without a point the rest of the way as Melvin Baker, Josh Terry and Tyshwan Edmondson hit key baskets.
All three scored in double figures, with Terry capturing game honors with 20 points. Edmondson added 19, Baker 10 and John Fraley 12 in his first action since suffering a concussion in the season-opener.
"It was really significant, just his presence out there," Loos said of his senior center Fraley. "I didn't think he could play that much, to be honest. We probably couldn't get much out of him tomorrow if we had to, but today was good."
Baker's 3-pointer from in front of the Austin Peay bench closed it to 70-69 with 2:08 remaining. After a Vols turnover, Terry made a driving layup off a nice dish from Edmondson to give Austin Peay its first lead of the second half, 71-70, with 1:05 to play.
Trae Golden and Cameron Tatum missed layup attempts for the Vols - the latter one blocked by Baker - before Edmondson connected on a one-handed jumper in the lane to make it 73-70 with 15.7 seconds left.
Golden's top of the key heave from more than 20 feet was off the mark and Terry added the closing free throw.
"Hopefully, it's a wakeup call," Martin said. "I don't think they overlooked a team. I thought we played well in spurts but we didn't play as well as a team on both ends of the floor."
Jeronne Maymon led the Vols with 18 points, 14 of those coming in the opening half. McRae added 14 and Kenny Hall 12 to go with a game-high 10 rebounds.
"Kenny was having a good game," Martin said. "He was really assertive and aggressive, and it was good to see him have back-to-back double-figure rebound (games). Jeronne played well in spurts, especially scoring and rebounding. Those two guys played really well together."
Tennessee made just nine of 16 free throw tries and finished 46.7 percent (28 of 60) from the field. But UT made only five of 19 attempts from the 3-point arc. Tennessee finished with a 34-24 overall rebounding edge, but the Vols' 17 second-chance points in the opening half shrunk to just four in the second 20 minutes.
Austin Peay was five of eight from 3-point distance and connected on 17 of 22 free throws.
Tennessee's next game is Wednesday at the College of Charleston (9 p.m., ESPN2). The Vols return home Dec. 20 to face UNC Asheville (7 p.m., SportSouth).
