Tennessee Basketball falls to Illinois in Nashville for third straight loss

NASHVILLE — Tennessee Basketball badly needed a rebound in the win column. All the Vols could do against Illinois Saturday night was rebound on the glass as they dropped a third straight game, losing 75-62 to the Illini at Bridgestone Arena.

Tennessee (7-3) dominated the rebounding numbers — 46-31 overall, including 23-11 on the offensive glass —  but struggled just about everywhere, losing three straight games for the first time since November 2023, when the Vols lost to Purdue and Kansas in the Maui Invitational, then at North Carolina in the ACC/SEC Challenge.

Kansas rallied from down 12 in the second half to beat Tennessee 81-76 last week at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas and the Vols followed it with a 62-60 loss at Syracuse Tuesday night in this season’s ACC/SEC Challenge game.

In Saturday night’s loss, Tennessee was led by 15 points, five assists and four rebounds from Ja’Kobi Gillespie. Nate Ament scored nine on 4-for-14 shooting from the floor, Amaree Abram had eight off the bench and Jaylen Carey had five points, seven rebounds and three assists.

Bishop Boswell had seven points and seven rebounds while both he and Gillespie battled foul trouble in the second half. Tennessee’s foul-line struggle continued, too, with the Vols making just 8 of 18 free throws.

Illinois (7-2) got 16 points and eight rebounds from Tomislav Ivisic, 16 points, eight rebounds and five assists from Keaton Wagler, 15 points from Kylan Boswell and 10 more from David Mirkovic.

Tennessee took a brief 49-48 lead on a JP Estrella two-hand dunk with 11 minutes left, but Illinois went on a game-changing 15-4 run over the next four minutes to take an 63-52 lead with 6:55 to go. 

When Gillespie hit a three to get the deficit down to six, the Illini answered with back-to-back threes for a 12-point lead with 2:13 to go. The lead got to 14 with 1:14 left, after an 8-0 Illinois run.

Tennessee led by two after dominating rebounding in first half

Tennessee scored the last five points of the first half to take a 34-32 lead into halftime after a dominant rebounding effort over the first 20 minutes. 

The Vols out-rebounded Illinois 25-11 in the first half, including 13-4 on the offensive glass, and outscored the Illini 12-5 in second chance points. 

Gillespie scored seven points and had fours assists and a pair of rebounds in the first half. Carey had four points and three boards and Boswell had three points and a team-high four rebounds before the break. Ament had just two points on 1-for-7 shooting in the first half and Abram scored five points off the bench. 

Ivisic was dominant for Illinois in the first half, scoring 14 points on 6-for-9 shooting from the floor and 2-for-4 from the 3-point line. 

Up Next: No. 13 Tennessee vs. No. 6 Louisville, December 16

Tennessee is now off until December 16, when the Vols host No. 6 Louisville at Food City Center. It’s scheduled 7 p.m. Eastern Time tipoff on ESPN. 

Louisville beat No. 22 Indiana 87-78 in Indianapolis on Saturday and hosts Memphis next Saturday, before the trip to Tennessee.

The Vols beat Louisville 77-55 at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville last November, in the first game of the home-and-home between the two schools.

Tennessee hosts Gardner Webb on December 21 and South Carolina State on December 30, before starting SEC play at Arkansas on January 3.