Tennessee got back on the winning track on Tuesday night but it didn’t exactly happen in impressive fashion as the No. 5 Volunteers beat the SEC’s only winless team in conference play 58-46 in Thompson-Boling Arena.

The final score was not indicative of how close this game was late in the second half as Tennessee scored a few last-minute buckets and held the Commodores on the defensive end of the court to give the team a double-digit win. Most of Tennessee’s struggles came from the field, as the Vols shot 41 percent in the game and only made it to the free throw line nine times.

Following the win, Tennessee improved to 24-2 on the season and 12-1 in league play. Vanderbilt dropped to 9-17 and 0-13 in the SEC.

With Tennessee coming off the loss at Kentucky, Barnes expressed his thoughts on his team’s mid-week performance against the Commodores.

“You know, I thought our guys did everything right leading into this game,” Barnes said during his postgame press conference. “We came back and I thought they, very seriously, took a look at the (Kentucky) game after Saturday night and understood the mistakes that were made and came out yesterday and had as good of a practice as we’ve had in three weeks.

“I thought we came out tonight and were good defensively, we had some shots that we didn’t make. We had some looks at it but again, I have a lot of respect for Vanderbilt and the fact they’ve had, once the season got started, rebuild themselves after Darius Garland went down. I think Bryce has done a terrific job, they play hard. When you’ve had the type of year they’ve had and they keep competing, I admire that.”

Aside from the team’s shooting woes, Tennessee also had 13 assists and 11 turnovers in the game. While the numbers weren’t pretty, Barnes believed the necessary effort was there from his squad on Tuesday night.

“It wasn’t like we weren’t executing, we had some looks at it, we did, we missed shots. There’s not much else I can say,” Barnes added. “I didn’t think there were a lot of rushed shots, I also thought we were trying to make the extra pass and turned down a couple we should have taken. This time of the year are the real dog days and you just got to get a win. You’ve got to find a way to win. That’s the bottom line.”

Tennessee’s next game will be another big test as the Volunteers travel to Baton Rouge to take on an LSU team that is 11-1 on the season in SEC play and will be 12-1 heading into the game against Tennessee if the Tigers can get a win at home against Florida on Wednesday night.