Jordan Bone got lost on the court Tuesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.

The Tennessee point guard knows that feeling. It’s a good one — it’s when he knows he’s in position to command a game and he got it early against Lenoir-Rhyne.

“I feel like when I’m going all out on the defensive end, you just kind of get lost in the game,” Bone said. “It allows you to have a feel for the game defensively and offensively.”

The junior speedster was lost plenty Tuesday night.

Bone was a handful in pressuring the Lenoir-Rhyne offense, batting away inbound passes and creating turnovers. He scored 18 points and keyed No. 6 Tennessee (1-0) to an 81-46 win.

Like the Vols, Bone started the season the right way — even if UT coach Rick Barnes wasn’t a fan of early shot choices from Bone. The Nashville native was locked in defensively from the opening tipoff, which Barnes and the UT coaching staff have challenged Bone to do after a closed scrimmage against Davidson and an exhibition against Tusculum.

He’s fast – a defining attribute he shows offensively more often — but Barnes believes he can use it to be a terror defensively.

“He should wreak havoc on teams away from the ball,” Barnes said. “He has learned to be a pretty good ball-side defense. It’s his help-side defense where he has to get better. I can tell you early in the game, he was locked in doing that. We need him to do that.”

In UT’s season-opener, that’s what Bone did.

But it wasn’t just the recent challenge that Bone responded to Tuesday. He pegged much of the progress he showed against Lenoir-Rhyne on the way that Tennessee coaches have pushed him over the past two-plus years.

He understands the confidence the Vols need him to play with. And he played with oodles of it in his season debut.

“I’m supposed to have command of the team as the point guard,” Bone said. “They have given me the confidence and the trust to go out there and play and have command of the team as well as the game — controlling the pace of the game and knowing what’s going on offensively and defensively.

“That goes out to the coaches and my teammates to give me the trust and confidence to do that.”

Those lessons and growth were evident Tuesday in a pair of ways Barnes noted. He called Bone over to the bench less than a minute into the second half and asked him what was happening on the court. Bone told him, which Barnes said he would not have been able to do a year ago.

Then Barnes lauded the way that his point guard was aware of trying to get his teammates involved, slicing through the defense to dictate UT’s attack.

Center Kyle Alexander was the beneficiary of one of those moments, when Bone tossed him a perfect pass for an easy dunk. Alexander said the Vols are a “whole different team” when Bone commands the game as he did Tuesday.

“Just watching him go from coast-to-coast and getting deflections — getting his hand on passes,” Alexander said. “He can see guys. He has gotten so much better at just seeing the whole floor. He has quick-twitch muscles. He can make passes and make plays.

“He honestly is unguardable if he wants to be.”

Alexander labeled Bone as the “X-factor” for one of the nation’s leading teams this season. It was easy to see why in the first game.

Bone pushed the ball in transition, carefully picked his moments to attack the rim and did so wisely. It was confident and it was certain — with Barnes saying Bone had a command and poise offensively.

Bone knows it was there Tuesday and he knows the Vols need it to be there regularly.

“This is definitely the year that I can say I get what is going on and I’m very comfortable out there,” Bone said. “I just feel like I have to focus more on both sides of the court and it will make me a much better player and make the team much better.”