Attack, attack, attack.

That was No. 24 Vanderbilt's mentality facing No. 7 Tennessee, and the Commodores earned a convincing 74-58 victory as a result.

Vanderbilt clicked on all aspects Sunday afternoon before a rowdy crowd of 9,650 with its approach of seizing the game.

"Our coaches have a mentality of attack," said junior guard Meredith Marsh, who finished with 11 points and four assists. "We attacked for 40 minutes this game and that's what was so key."

Although Vanderbilt's perimeter shots weren't falling early, the Commodores out-scored the Volunteers 40-30 in the paint on a combination of winning the rebounding battle and getting excellent dribble penetration.

Senior guard Jen Risper, who scored 12 points and had a team-high three steals, pointed out the team's approach against the more physical Tennessee team was to assume a shot would miss at all times, even with Vanderbilt's roster of sharpshooters.

"We knew that in order to win this game you have to out-rebound your opponent," Risper said. "We're a pretty confident shooting team, but we need to have a mentality that it's going to miss, and with that mentality you're going to go after it and you're going to hustle. I think we had that mentality that it doesn't matter who's shooting the ball, we're going to go get that offensive rebound."

Vanderbilt grabbed 21 offensive rebounds, a mark Marsh called "insane."

Coach Melanie Balcomb said her team is different from years past without a reliance on the outside shot to always fall. The ability to work the ball inside with the pass and off the dribble took pressure off the perimeter game; Vanderbilt only hit four 3-pointers but had countless lay-ups.

"We didn't have to make shots. We had to attack and we had to finish when we attacked," Balcomb said. "Our attacking was what we'd never been able to do to them, and that was because of our athleticism and our strength that we hadn't had before."

The Volunteers were powerless to hold off the Commodore attack as a result. Vanderbilt pulled away in the second half, twice going up by as much as 21 points and silencing the large amount of orange-clad fans.  

"Their ability to take us off the dribble, we didn't have an answer," said Tennessee coach Pat Summitt with a shrug. "They did a super job."

"Our first priority was to stop their drives, and obviously we didn't," said Tennessee forward Pat Fuller. "Vanderbilt just kept coming at us no matter what."

Just as intense was Vanderbilt's defense. The Commodores harassed the Volunteers into 23 turnovers and held Tennessee to 39 percent shooting from the field.

"We rushed at times," Summitt said. "You've got to give Vanderbilt credit. They forced us into a little bit of a panic mode at times and we just didn't have composure."

With the win, in addition to beating Tennessee for the first time in its last 17 tries, Vanderbilt moved to 2-0 in Southeastern Conference play for the first time in four years. After a sluggish run through non-conference play, the Commodores played their best basketball of the season but haven't hit their limit. 

"To get a win this big this early in our conference games, we're going to just keep building on it," Marsh said. "We're not peaking. We're going to take this, we're going to build on it, and we're going to keep playing harder every single game."