BATON ROUGE, La. – Sophomore Tari Eason claimed his fourth double-double of the season, scoring a season-high 24 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in No. 21 LSU’s 79-67 win over the No. 18 Tennessee Vols Saturday.

The Tigers were led by Xavier Pinson in the assist column with seven and Eric Gaines created four takeaways, which led the team in its winning effort.

"Great, great win. Really proud of our guys. Tremendous effort all night. I thought we got off to a great start. We got off to a better start to start the second half. That was a problem for us against Kentucky and Auburn. I thought we did a much better job getting off to a quick start with the second half, and we certainly closed it strong," said head coach Will Wade. 

Pinson suffered a knee injury that forced him to leave the game in the second half. Will Wade said post game that all reports are positive but further scans and tests in the upcoming week will determine the severity of the injury.

LSU had one of their best offensive performances of the year, shooting 47 percent from the field and hitting 8 threes on 18 attempts.

I should’ve mentioned that. I thought our offense outside of some of the sloppy turnovers, I thought we took great threes, I thought we took great shots. We did a good job getting to the rim. Our offense looked as good as it has looked in a long time, and we’re capable of that. To put 79 (points) on the second-best defensive team in the country, we’re capable of that. We took really good threes outside of one or two of them. We did a good job attacking the rim. We need to continue to work on finishing at the rim and finish a little bit better. We need to finish a little bit better at the rim but overall, I was very pleased with our offense." Wade said.

The Vols were led by guard Kenndy Chandler, who finished the night with 19 points, four rebounds, and three assists. 

The Tigers improve to 14-1, and 2-1 in SEC play. LSU will next travel on the road to face Florida on Wednesday.