Tyreke Key's rebound played big role in No. 9 Tennessee's win at LSU
Tyreke Key announced his return to the floor at LSU on Saturday with 10 points in No. 9 Tennessee’s 77-56 win inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge. It was the most he had scored in a game in nearly two months — since scoring 17 against Eastern Kentucky on December 7 — but still only told part of the story.
Key, who missed the 70-59 win at Mississippi State on Tuesday due to illness, had a season-high seven rebounds. What’s more, he grabbed four of them on the offensive glass.
“I thought he was terrific,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said after the game. “Tyreke is one of those guys that has been under the weather. You know what, early in the game, they were out-rebounding us. He and Julian (Phillips) probably changed the rebounding. Tyreke went and got three big offensive rebounds.”
Tyreke Key at LSU: 10 points, 7 rebounds, 4-10 FG, 2-5 3FG
His first offensive board came at the 14:57 mark of the first half. His second was at 7:58, leading to a Santiago Vescovi three to build Tennessee’s lead to six. It stopped a 6-0 LSU run that helped the Tigers trim their early deficit down to one possession.
Key had another offensive board at 2:31 and followed it with a 3-pointer, building the lead to 12, the biggest of the game at that point. He had another rebound on the defensive end with 1:52 left in the fist half, leading to his second three of the game and stretching the lead to 17, as the Vols closed the half on a 12-2 run to lead 39-22 at the break.
His fourth offensive rebound came with 7:09 left in the second half. He scored a layup after grabbing the board to make it a 21-point lead.
Key finished 4-for-10 from the field, the most shots he had made in a game since Eastern Kentucky on December 7, and was 2-for-5 from the 3-point line.
“I thought he took some great, balanced shots,” Barnes said. “Worked hard defensively.”
And he did it all in just 18 minutes, his fewest since playing 18 at Ole Miss on December 28. He’s averaging 25.4 minutes per game, scoring 9.2 points to go with 2.9 rebounds per game.
“He’ll play more minutes,” Barnes said. “I probably should’ve put him out there more, too.”
Zakai Zeigler described Key, both the scorer and the rebounder, as an added dimension that this Tennessee basketball team has to have.
“If he is doing that,” Zeigler said, “that just makes us that much better as a team. We will need him to definitely continue to do that. I know he will. It just makes us as a team that much better.”
Up Next: No. 9 Tennessee vs. Georgia, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network
Josiah-Jordan James compared Key’s shot-making ability to that of Zeigler, who scored 36 points over two games on the road over the course of the week.
“He’s a really good guard,” James said, “able to get into cracks on offense and find his shot and that’s what we need, players that are willing to be aggressive and are willing to score and that’s what coaches has been preaching since the Kentucky game.”
Just shoot your shot, like Key did at LSU. And crash the glass, too.
“Guys taking the shots that we practice and taking open shots that we should be shooting,” James said, “and then getting on the offensive glass. But Tyreke is, like I’ve been saying since I met him, he can score with the best of them and his aggressiveness helps us out a lot.”
