Tennessee punches Pittsburgh in the mouth 83-76

Scotty Hopson and the Tennessee Volunteers beat the Pittsburgh Panthers at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh today 83-76. Hopson scored a career-high 27 points for Tennessee (7-0). The loss for Pittsburgh (10-1) was their first of the season.  The Volunteers are 7-0 for the first time under Bruce Pearl. Tennessee really took it to Pittsburgh early and often in this game. The Panthers only led once and that was 2-0. It felt like the game was never in doubt in the second half because they did a great job of maintaining a comfortable lead. Every time the Panthers attempted to make a run it was stifled. Tennessee answered every call from the Panthers today. The score was a lot closer than the game really was. They led 37-25 at the half. The size of the Volunteers really gave the guards for Pittsburgh trouble. Ashton Gibbs scored 15 points, but most of those were late in the game. He struggled to shoot over lanky defenders. He finished 4-13 from the field. It didn’t help that the Vo...