Vols’ destiny was always misery
Rick Barnes thought he finally had this Tennessee basketball team figured out.
The Vols coach saw a new attention to detail in the past two weeks. He witnessed an elevated chemistry, a sense of being locked in together. He was confident that he knew what he would get from these Vols every game — something he hadn’t been able to say in two months until March arrived.
“I was just thought we had played really good basketball,” Barnes said.
Barnes was mistaken, as he learned in ugly fashion as No. 5 seed Tennessee lost 70-56 to No. 12 seed Oregon State.
“We came into this and we just didn’t have it,” Barnes said. “I’m a little bit surprised, to be quite honest with you. I’m disappointed because I thought we had gotten by all that. Because the last couple weeks, we had really been competing hard defensively, doing some things.
“Then we came out and just got totally out of character.”
That depends on the definition of this Tennessee team’s character, which primarily has been its wild inconsistency. In the end, the unpredictable Vols met the most predictable end: The worst version showed up at the worst time.
“We got a taste of it, but we didn’t have what it took to stay here,” guard Josiahjordan James said.
That perhaps is the most puzzling thing about the Vols. They had what it took to make a significant run in the NCAA Tournament. They were capable of annihilating an opponent, which they did routinely for the first two months of the season and occasionally since.
The Vols peaked on Dec. 30 with a 7353 win at Missouri, looking like perhaps the best team in the nation apart from Baylor and Gonzaga. Those two teams kept it going, ending up as No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
The Vols spiraled, flipping from juggernaut to enigma when 2021 arrived. They never figured it out, even when Barnes felt he finally had the true pulse of this team after back-to-back wins against Florida and a hard-fought game against SEC champion Alabama.
“It is very frustrating to go out like this
with the team that we had and the firepower that we had,” James said.
Tennessee put its firepower on full display for the first 11 games, going 10-1. The Vols went 8-8 the rest of the season, fittingly representing the coin-flip odds it seemed they had in each game.
Their main flaws — mediocre 3-point shooting, baffling turnovers and insufficient post depth — too often showed up with a lack of offensive identity. They were equally prone to dominance as they were disaster.
“That was a problem for our team,” Barnes said. “If you look at our team all year, it was the inconsistency. Not really knowing from game to game what we
were going to get. If you ask me, that’s the most disappointing thing because to be a championship-caliber team, you have to be more consistent.
Friday was the ultimate disaster. John Fulkerson, whose season has been hard to comprehend, watched from the sideline as his Tennessee career likely ended due to injuries suffered from a pair of elbows to the head from Florida’s Omar Payne. Yves Pons, the other key senior, battled foul trouble. So did Santiago Vescovi, who was the lone Vol to make multiple 3-pointers.
Victor Bailey Jr., the streakiest of Tennessee’s players, scored nine points on 14 shots and hit 1 of 9 from 3-point range.
Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer, while the main source of brilliance, needed a combined 28 shots to total 26 points.
“Everyone had their moments,” Barnes said. “But it just wasn’t consistent enough.”
That unfortunately is the way this Tennessee team will be remembered. It had its moments, but it should have had so many more.
“I’m disappointed that I didn’t think we played our best basketball,” Barnes said.
Barnes was talking about Friday, when his sixth season at Tennessee concluded. He could have been talking about the whole experience.