Tennessee’s Meltdown: How Crucial Misplays are Spelling Disaster for the Volunteers
For 39 minutes and 50 seconds, the Tennessee Volunteers played good basketball against Vanderbilt and Missouri. Although — considering Tennessee is, this week, ranked a top 10 team in the country — perhaps the Commodores and Tigers should not have given the Vols any trouble. Nonetheless, as time was expiring, Tennessee found themselves up 2 against 2 SEC opponents. However, in both final scores, Tennessee instead found themselves losing by 1. The reason for this: a complete collapse on defense in the final play of each game. A double-order of disheartening meltdowns makes the future in Knoxville look very bleak for the Volunteers. The onus is on Rick Barnes to get this talented team back into top shape before tournament season, or otherwise, the Volunteers may make a 3rd straight untimely exit from the postseason.
The roster for the Volunteers is, simply put, awe-inspiring. Zakai Zeigler and Santiago Vescovi make up this team’s incredible backcourt. Zeigler, the point guard, is a 5’9” sharpshooter who has already surpassed 250 points on the season. At the 2, Vescovi has also surpassed 250 points, but on stronger efficiency. On the other side of the court, the ever underrated Olivier Nkamhoua is doing wonderful things as the center. He is a great scorer and good defender, and Khamhoua actually averages more points than Zeigler on a game by game basis. Simply put, the talent on this team is enough to where back-to-back close losses to Vanderbilt and Missouri should be surprising.
Why is Tennessee losing these games, though? The answer can be found in Rick Barnes’ coaching. Barnes is a fantastic NCAA coach: certainly top 25 currently, and debatably even higher than that (CBS Sports ranked him as the preseason 14th best coach). However, if one thing has plagued Barnes throughout his tenure at Tennessee, it is that he fails to live up to the big moment. Coaches design plays to go the length of the court in a short amount of time (the all-time most famous play of this type being Kris Jenkins’ shot in the NCAA tournament finals against North Carolina). Unfortunately, sometimes teams catch other teams by surprise. Take, for example, Wake Forest’s November win against Utah Valley. Head Coach Steve Forbes expertly planned for this moment, and Tyree Appleby caught a court-length pass and sealed the game away. For a team like Tennessee, this occurring, say, once every 5 years is perfectly reasonable. However, happening in 2 straight games is a completely different story. Barnes likely needs to head back to the drawing board in these tense situations.
Tennessee has the #1 ranked defense in the country, and it has been that way for quite a while according to KenPom. However, their offense is ranked 52nd in the country. As a result, they can find themselves locked in close games against other good SEC opponents as time winds down. The solution to these woes: Barnes needs to gain some confidence. He absolutely deserves to be confident in the big moment, but from a spectator’s perspective, he seems to overthink the crucial moments. If Barnes coached the way he did for the previous 39 minutes in the last minute of their games this week, then Tennessee would be 20-4 instead of 18-6. Fortunately, Barnes still has a strong tournament-contender. If he can get this team back into shape, then Tennessee will be a team to take seriously in the postseason even if they find themselves in a close game!
