Vols not immune to scorching shooting by opposing teams
The prevailing thought regarding Tennessee’s basketball team this winter has been that any early exit from next month’s NCAA tournament would be the result of a rough shooting performance by the Volunteers.
Saturday night changed that way of thinking.
Despite possessing the nation’s stingiest defense in terms of field-goal percentages, the Vols are not immune to opposing teams catching fire, as Missouri proved during its 86-85 upset triumph inside Thompson-Boling Arena. The Tigers shot 52.6% from the floor (30-of-57) and 53.8% from 3-point range (14-of-26), with DeAndre Gholston’s heave from nearly 30 feet before the buzzer sounded serving as the deciding blow.
“They were hitting tough shots,” Tennessee sophomore guard Jahmai Mashack said. “We made mistakes defensively — every team does, and we’re going to look at the film and try to correct that — but they were hitting tough shots. We know how hard they work on their game and how hard they practice and stuff like that. They were making good drives to the basket with good kicks and good post-ups.
“They made great passes on post entries, so shout out to them, because they were making tough shots all night.”
Gholston was 4-of-5 from long range, and he combined with D’Moi Hodge, Kobe Brown and Sean East to go 13-of-20 on 3-pointers for a staggering 65.0% clip.
Tennessee entered the game allowing just a 22.8% success
“They were hitting touch shots. We made mistakes defensively — every team does, and we’re going to look at the film and try to correct that — but they were hitting tough shots. We know how hard they work on their game and how hard they practice and stuff like that. They were making good drives to the basket with good kicks and good post-ups.” – UT GUARD JAHMAI MASHACK
rate from 3-point range, but Mizzou’s 14 3-pointers followed the 10 given up in last Wednesday’s 66-65 loss at Vanderbilt. The Vols yielded just 5.1 3-pointers per game in the prior 10 contests leading up to their trip to Nashville, which ended with a Tyrin Lawrence 3 at the horn.
The Tigers average 9.6 3-pointers per game, which ranks second in the Southeastern Conference behind Alabama, which visits Knoxville on Wednesday.
“Think about it, they banked one in early,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “It’s not like we lost them too many times. That’s what they do. They shot the ball extremely well, and we’re going to run into teams like that.”
Houston now leads the nation in overall defensive field-goal percentage (35.2%), with Tennessee second (35.5%) and Alabama third (37.0%). The Vols are still tops against 3-pointers (24.2%), with the Crimson Tide second (26.3%).
“They really just attacked the lane and were spraying it out,” said senior guard Tyreke Key, who scored 21 of his 23 points after halftime and led Tennessee’s comeback from a 17-point deficit. “Give credit to them,
because they hit some tough shots all game. They hit a couple of bank shots, and that’s hard on any defense.”
Staying upbeat
The Vols fell to 19-6 overall and 8-4 in SEC play, but Barnes was more upbeat Saturday night compared to Tennessee’s other five setbacks and many of its wins, for that matter.
“He knows that it’s just one game and that we have a lot more games to play,” Mashack said. “Despite the tough shot that they hit, he knew there were some positives that we can bring to every game. That’s what he was saying in the locker room to us. We can take this as a positive, even though it hurts.”
Said Barnes: “We love our team, and we know these guys care. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that you go through some spells like this, and as quickly as we got into it, we can get out of it. Once we do get out of it, which I know we will, we’re going to get going the way that we need to.”
Zeigler struggles
Zakai Zeigler scored nine points within the first nine minutes to stake Tennessee to a 20-15 lead, but he had only two points the rest of the way. The sophomore point guard picked up his second foul with 5:55 remaining in the first half and sat out until halftime, and he fouled out with 2:48 to play.
“We need Zakai in the game,” Barnes said. “He’s got to stop fouling the way he does. We’ve talked about that with him, and especially that last one. He can’t finish up in that situation.”
Zeigler was replaced in the first half by freshman B.J. Edwards, whose nearly six minutes represented his most meaningful action. Edwards scored four points but committed two turnovers.
“B.J. has gotten better ever since we started using him a lot on the scout team,” Barnes said. “We’ve watched him grow tremendously, and we told him yesterday that he better be ready. We’ve always thought he’s going to be a good guard and a good player for us, and we still think that.
“For him not to play games on end and to go in and do that speaks volumes about him.”
Odds and ends
Had Tennessee won Saturday night, it would have tied for the third-largest comeback in program history. … Key on whether he had ever suffered consecutive buzzerbeating losses before: “I think I have, actually, when I was at Indiana State. It’s tough, but we’ll be all right.” … The Vols were outscored by 16 points during Olivier Nkamhoua’s 20 minutes and 57 seconds on the floor. … Uros Plavsic went 3-of-4 from the line to raise his season free-throw rate from 36.4% to 40.5%.