Nate Oats Addresses “Leadership Void” Heading into LSU
Tennessee avenged last month’s loss at Arkansas, knocking off the Razorbacks, 78-74, at Thompson-Boling Arena to improve to 23-7 (14-4 SEC) on the season.
The Vols got off to an extremely fast start, making seven of their first eight three-point attempts and opened up a dominant 21-point halftime lead.
“You know, knock on wood, earlier in the year we shot the ball well and then went through some lulls with it, I think every team does that,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “When we take good shots, and take rhythm shots, we are a good 3-point shooting team. Are they all going to go in? No. When we get looks and we take the right ones and we don’t get anxious, then yes, we can make threes. Still, we talk about how important rebounding is, I’d like to think we’ll make them all, and in the first half we missed two. When our guys are open and take good shots, we feel good about it.”
The game flipped in the second half as Arkansas used a pair of massive runs to cut into Tennessee’s lead and make it a very tight game in the closing minutes.
Josiah-Jordan James excellent play in the second half and free throws from Santiago Vescovi and Zakai Zeigler allowed the Vols to ice the win and to improve to 16-0 at home this season.
Tennessee has now finished unbeaten at home in two of the last four seasons.
“I can’t thank our fans enough here,” Barnes said. “It’s been one of those years where Tom told me coming in, we just went in averaging over 18,000 for the year. It’s awesome and certainly once we got into conference play, Thompson-Boling Arena has become one of the great places in college basketball to be and see a game. People that come over that are here for the first time they just remark to me that they haven’t seen anything like it. We appreciate our fanbase for what they’ve done to help us this year. This league has been brutal. It’s been a brutal league. In terms of every night you go out it’s difficult. You need advantages at times. There’s no doubt I think our fans helped us today.”
The seventh-year head also discussed Victor Bailey Jr’s future, Kennedy Chandler’s struggles at the free throw line and why Tennessee struggled in the second half.
