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Tennessee’s eight game SEC winning streak came to a close Saturday as the Vols fell at No. 23 Arkansas, 58-48.
Here’s three quick takeaways.
Offense Takes A Big Step Back
Tennessee’s offense has made radical improvements over the last month as the Vols have completely flipped their season.
However, Saturday’s matchup in Fayetteville was back to the ugly, slug it out games we’ve seen from Tennessee earlier this season.
Neither team could find any offensive success in the first half as Arkansas took a 24-23 lead into the locker room. Both teams played strong defense and the Vols were forced into their worst shot selection in some time.
Arkansas ball pressure gave Tennessee issues also as the Vols turned it over eight times in the first half and 15 times in the game.
While both defenses were good and made open looks hard to find, both teams had reasons to be kicking themselves at the break. Tennessee missed three open layups around the rim and a pair of wide open Santiago Vescovi triples rolled out.
It evened out as Arkansas missed a handful of bunnies and J.D. Notae made the Razorbacks only two triples.
The second half wasn’t much better, especially for Tennessee. The Vols’ foul trouble — more on that in a bit — led them to play an abundance of zone defense in the second half. Arkansas wasn’t fantastic against it, but found enough holes and grabbed enough offensive rebounds to pull away.
Tennessee seemed unable to get an open look in the second half as Arkansas’ half court defense completely suffocated the Vols.
Tennessee’s 48 points were its fewest of the season.
Foul Trouble Plagues Tennessee
Foul trouble has become an issue for Tennessee in the past few week and that did not change Saturday at Bud Walton Arena.
All four of Tennessee’s top scorers: Kennedy Chandler, Zakai Zeigler, Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James had two or more fouls by halftime.
The good thing for Tennessee is that neither picked up both fouls early in the half. That — combined with Barnes’ willingness to play them with two fouls — led to all four playing at least 13 first half minutes.
The real killer in the first half came in the final two minutes. Kennedy Chandler was, by far, Tennessee’s best offensive threat in the first half, scoring nine of Tennessee’s 23 points. Then, with 1:22 left in the half, Chandler picked up his second foul on a charge.
Barnes rolled the dice and put Chandler back in after a possession on the bench. It looked like the five-star freshman was going to make it worth it, driving to the basket and dishing it off to Plavsic for a wide open layup. However, Chandler got called for another charge and went into the half with three fouls.
Then, in the first three minutes of the second half, Vescovi picked up his third foul on an obvious block.
While the two charge calls on Chandler were debatable, the charge called on Santiago Vescovi with 11:03 left in the game was not. A terrible call gave the junior his fourth foul and sent him to the bench.
Chandler and James weren’t far behind picking up their fourth foul. By the under eight timeout, three of Tennessee’s starters and top players were on the bench with four fouls.
From there, Arkansas turned the pressure on and made the run that proved to be the difference. Out of the under eight timeout, the Razorbacks went on an 8-1 run to push their lead from two points to nine.
Tennessee did not play well at Arkansas, but the foul trouble was what officially drowned them.
Vescovi, James Struggle
There weren’t many Tennessee players that played well on the offensive end of the court against Arkansas, but Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James’ struggles were particularly crucial.
Vescovi’s seven points were his second fewest of the season and the first time in SEC play that he hasn’t scored in double figures.
The SEC’s best three-point shooter was shooting 45% from deep in SEC play entering the day, but made just one-of-nine attempts from deep Saturday.
James hasn’t been near the offensive threat that Vescovi has, but he’s been crucial in Tennessee’s offensive improvement over the last month. The junior wing couldn’t buy a basket at Arkansas, scoring just eight points on four-of-13 shooting from the field.
The duo combined to just make one-of-15 attempts while turning it over six times.
Plenty of Tennessee players struggled in the road loss, but the junior leaders proved largest.
