Butler 55 - 67 5Tennessee
Final
  for this game

Tennessee rallies past Butler

Dec 14, 2014 - 11:38 PM Knoxville, TN (SportsNetwork.com) - Josh Richardson and Kevin Punter combined for more than half of Tennessee's points and the Volunteers rallied to knock off No. 15 Butler, 67-55, on Sunday.

Richardson scored 20 points and Punter had 18 for the Vols (4-3), who had lost eight straight games against ranked opponents. All 10 players who took the court for Tennessee scored a point.

"I've been fortunate to have some great players and great coaches and be part of some great teams and have some really, really good wins, but I don't know that I've ever been more proud of a group of guys than I was today," said Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall.

Kellen Dunham led Butler (8-2) with 16 points and Kameron Woods pulled down 16 boards in the setback.

"We have to give Tennessee a lot of credit for how they played," said Butler interim coach Chris Holtmann. "In watching them, we felt like they were going to be difficult to play. You have to give them credit. They were tougher than us throughout the second half. We did some things to contribute to that, but you have to give them credit."

Punter opened the game with consecutive jumpers. Dunham got Butler on the board with a 3 and Woods threw down a dunk to make it 5-4. The Bulldogs didn't trail again until late in the second half.

Alex Barlow and Kelan Martin made 3-pointers in the final minute of the first half to send the Bulldogs into halftime with a 34-25 lead.

Dunham's 3 early in the second half made it 37-25, but the Vols ran off 12 straight points to tie it at 37. Richardson had eight in a row during the flurry, which Barlow finally ended with a 3-ball at 12:11.

Tennessee finally got over the hump with an Armani Moore layup at 6:15. A minute later, Punter extended the lead to 54-49 with a 3-pointer from Richardson.

Out of a timeout, Derek Reese banked in a triple with just over two minutes left, and Tennessee held on from there.

Game Notes

Tennessee outscored Butler 32-12 in the paint ... Tennessee center Dominic Woodson left the program earlier this week after deciding to transfer ... Butler had won seven of eight non-conference road games.






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