🏀 No. 1 Kansas Tops No. 7 Tennessee 69-60 in Hawaii

HONOLULU (AP) — Hunter Dickinson scored 17 points and grabbed 20 rebounds as No. 1 Kansas pulled away for a 69-60 victory over No. 7 Tennessee on Wednesday.

The Jayhawks (5-1) bounced back from a 14-point loss a day earlier to take third place in the Maui Invitational over the Volunteers (4-2), who have dropped their last two games.

“It was a great win for us today,” Coach Self said. “We struggled last night and to bounce back in 13 hours to play a team as good as Tennessee and to hang in there under some fairly adverse conditions for some of our players, it was just a terrific thing and one that we’ll look back on in February and be very thankful for.”

Kevin McCullar Jr. had 14 points, KJ Adams Jr. added 13 and Dajuan Harris Jr. chipped in eight assists for Kansas, which led by as many as 11 in the closing minutes.

Tennessee’s Santiago Vescovi hit a 3-pointer from the left wing to tie it at 49 with 12:44 to play, but Kansas answered with back-to-back buckets from Dickinson to pull ahead for good.

The Volunteers led by as many as seven in the first half. Kansas rallied back and tied it up at 35 at the half.

Vescovi made five 3-pointers and finished with 21 points. Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey contributed 13 apiece and Jonas Aidoo had 11 rebounds.

It was the fifth meeting between the teams in the last six seasons. Tennessee had won the last two meetings, but Kansas still leads the all-time series, 5-3.

The game was a rematch of the Battle 4 Atlantis championship a year ago. Tennessee won that game 64-50.

BIG PICTURE
Kansas took the court at the Stan Sheriff Center about 12 hours after a loss to No. 4 Marquette in the tournament semifinals Tuesday.

Tennessee was playing back-to-back games against top-three teams for the first time in program history. It hung tough with No. 2 Purdue on Tuesday, but faded down the stretch and came up short, 71-67.