Who’s Playing
Illinois Fighting Illini @ Tennessee Volunteers
Current Records: Illinois 7-1, Tennessee 5-3
How To Watch
- When: Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 12 p.m. ET
- Where: Thompson-Boling Arena — Knoxville, Tennessee
- TV: CBS
- Follow: CBS Sports App
- Fubo (Try for free) For a limited time, new subscribers can save $20 on Fubo’s Pro, Elite, and Premier plans
What to Know
The Tennessee Volunteers will be playing in front of their home fans against the Illinois Fighting Illini at 12:00 p.m. ET on Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, both teams will really light up the scoreboard.
Tennessee finally caught a break after three consecutive losses. Everything went their way against the Patriots on Tuesday as the Volunteers made off with a 87-66 win. The result was nothing new for Tennessee, who have now won three contests by 21 points or more so far this season.
Josiah-Jordan James and Jonas Aidoo were among the main playmakers for Tennessee as the former scored 15 points along with 6 assists and 6 rebounds and the latter scored 17 points along with 8 rebounds. Aidoo continues to roll, besting his previous point total in each of the last three games he’s played. Another player making a difference was Tobe Awaka, who scored 11 points along with 7 rebounds.
Meanwhile, Illinois entered their tilt with FAU with four consecutive wins but they’ll enter their next game with five. The Fighting Illini came out on top against the Owls by a score of 98-89 on Tuesday.
Illinois’ success was spearheaded by the efforts of Terrence Shannon Jr., who scored 33 points, and Marcus Domask, who scored 33 points along with 6 rebounds. Domask continues to roll, besting his previous point total in each of the last three games he’s played.
The Volunteers’ win was their third straight at home, which pushed their record up to 5-3. They’ve been dominating during the games in that stretch too, as they’ve won by an average of 26.67 points. As for the Fighting Illini, their win bumped their record up to 7-1.
Some high-performance offense is likely on the agenda as Tennessee and Illinois are some of the highest scoring teams in the league. Tennessee hasn’t had any problem running up the score this season, having averaged 77.6 points per game. However, it’s not like Illinois struggles in that department as they’ve been even better at 80.1 per game. With both teams so easily able to put up points, the only question left is who can run up the score up higher Check back here after the action for a full breakdown and analysis of the contest.