Tennessee at Xavier

A battle of two solid teams will take place as Tennessee invades Xavier with their lofty 10-1 record on the season. Tennessee has played an extremely soft schedule to this point, and in their only test they were blown out by Texas by 19. There has to be some concern in Knoxville as their stellar sharp-shooting guards have become three-point happy - and not hitting. Chris Lofton has seen his average dip 6 ppg from last year, due to hitting a horrible 35.6% from the field. Lofton has become married to the three-pointers, as 102 of his 132 shots have come from beyond the arc. Jajuan Smith is suffering a similar fate. Smith has hoisted 86 three-balls of 122 shots. His scoring, shooting percentage and long-distance scoring is also down from a year ago. They have combined to hoist 188 three-point attempts of 254 shots, or 74%. That will be a tough formula to beat a very good Xavier team that took Ohio State to the wire last season, beat Indiana on a neutral floor this year by 15, and is getting solid play all over the court. Xavier features six players averaging double-digits, and they are sharing the ball and moving it well. They have 161 assists, to just 118 turnovers. Unless Tennessee has a suddenly hot game from long distance, Xavier comes away the winner here.