Top-ranked Vols visit Vandy
KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee men’s basketball team has ascended to the top spot in the nation’s polls with its ability to learn and improve.
Tonight will be another opportunity to see how the Volunteers have improved.
The top-ranked Vols will play in Nashville at 7 EST in an in-state Southeastern Conference game against Vanderbilt. Like in 2008, the only other time the Vols rose to No. 1, the Commodores are the first opponent Tennessee will have faced with its newly earned ranking.
Unlike that time — when the Commodores were a top-20 team and beat Tennessee 72-68 — this Vanderbilt team comes in limping. The Commodores (9-8, 0-5) have struggled since losing five-star freshman point guard Darius Garland, who is out for the season with a torn meniscus suffered against Kent State in late November.
“I have a lot respect for Vanderbilt,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said Tuesday. “Coach (Bryce) Drew has had to deal with tough situations. He had a terrific recruiting year, but one of his main guys — a guy you can certainly build a team around — gets hurt early. For him having to sort of change direction, put different guys in (is tough). You admire coaches that have to go through that; if you’ve been in it long enough, you’ve had to go through it.
“This team is going to play hard, fight, work hard and execute like he wants done. They have a really good offensive scheme: They’re going to spread you out, shoot the 3, and on any given night some guys can get going. He’s getting his foundation, his culture in place. I know personally that takes some time to do.
“He’s had some setbacks. It’s tough, but he’s going to do a great job.”
Tennessee (16-1, 5-0) has had its own struggles of late — although obviously not nearly as bad or as hard to fix. The Vols have been outscored in three of the last six halves, with offenses able to spread them
out, find gaps and hit open shooters for shots. The Tennessee defense — its trademark a season ago — had to be relied on down the stretch Saturday against Alabama, as shots that had fallen most of the season quit falling for the Vols.
Getting stops when stops were most needed — such as Grant Williams’ block of a John Petty 3-point attempt that would have put Alabama ahead, or Admiral Schofield’s defense on Petty on the Crimson Tide’s final possession, forcing a travel — could have been the jolt the Vols needed to restore the intensity level on that end of the court.
“I hope so,” Barnes said when asked if that could be the case. “Again, I think you’ve got to give Alabama a lot of credit. We jumped on them, and it’s my fault — I had the guys probably too emotional. During this time of year, you have different ways you try to get guys motivated. You go back a year ago, they hit us hard. We were coming off the big win at Kentucky and we go there and they beat us by 28 points, and I thought we came out playing really, really hard.
“But when you get overly emotional before the game — and it probably started the night before — that wears you out. It really does take your energy from you. It really can. There was a part through the game there where I felt we were tired, and we talked about it yesterday and the players admitted to me they were overly anxious, overly emotional. That’s my fault.
“That’s my fault because I wanted to keep them on a steady keel and I wanted them to go out and — but the fact is at the end of the game when we had to make some plays, we did. … When we needed to get some stops at the end, we were able to do that, and that’s something I hope we can build on.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress. com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.