TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS POSTGAME NOTES
• Tennessee is now 74-58 (.561) all-time in the SEC Tournament, including 45-18 (.714) in opening games, 15-13 (.536) in Nashville and 10-4 (.714) versus Mississippi State.
• Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes fell to 11-7 (.611) in the SEC Tournament with the Volunteers, including 6-2 (.750) in opening contests, 6-6 (.500) in Nashville and 3-1 (.750) against Mississippi State.
• Tennessee’s setback Friday snapped a six-year streak—does not count 2020, when the tournament was canceled due to COVID-19—of the team winning its SEC Tournament opener.
• The Volunteers are now 76-24 (.760) in 100 games as an AP top-10 team under Barnes’ direction, including 35-11 (.761) in 46 games while in the top five.
• The last time Tennessee dropped back-to-back games against SEC foes was in Feb. 18 and 21, 2023, when it fell at Kentucky (66-54) and at Texas A&M (68-63), respectively.
• Tennessee’s two lowest-scoring first halves of the season are both against Mississippi State, as it had 22 in Starkville, Miss., on Jan. 10 before notching 19 in Friday’s quarterfinal affair.
• The Volunteers’ 56 points marked their lowest output of the season, as they finished three below the 59 they totaled on Jan. 30 against South Carolina.
• Matthews became the first player to make seven-plus shots without a miss versus Tennessee since Oregon State’s Roman Silva went 8-of-8 on March 19, 2021, in Indianapolis in the NCAA Tournament Round of 64.
• Auburn’s Korvotney Barber was the last SEC player to go at least 7-of-7 from the floor against Tennessee, tallying an 8-of-8 clip
scorers on its roster, three of whom have hit that number while at Tennessee.
• Aidoo jumped five players to move from No. 11 all the way to sixth on Tennessee’s single-season offensive rebounding list, now possessing 97 such boards on the year.
• Friday marked the second time this season Aidoo grabbed seven offensive boards in a game—he also did so Jan. 13 at Georgia—after no Volunteer achieved that feat even once in the prior three seasons.
• The last Tennessee player with seven offensive rebounds in an SEC Tournament game was Kyle Alexander, who hit that mark against the same foe (Mississippi State), on the same date (March 15) and in the same round (quarterfinals), exactly five years ago
• Aidoo, who pulled down nine rebounds in the first half alone, compiled the 13th double-digit rebounding total of his career, including his 11th in 2023-24.
• With 676 points in 2023-24, Knecht passed Allan Houston (1992-93) and Bernard King (1976-77) to move from No. 11 up to ninth on the program’s single-season leaderboard, including third in the past 30 years (1994-2024).
• In his 19 outings against SEC foes during his lone season at Tennessee, Knecht scored 13-plus points in 18 of them, all but the first when he tallied eight in the conference opener