Tennessee basketball’s first performance in front of the public was a disappointing one as the Vols fell to Indiana 66-62 on Sunday afternoon in Knoxville.
The Vols’ offense struggled badly early and then again down the final stretch of the game as Indiana used a 9-2 second half run to take control of the game. It was a bad performance but it wasn’t one that entirely surprised Rick Barnes.
“But am I surprised? I’m not sure I am because I’ve been watching it and we need more of these games,” Barnes said postgame. “We do. Now, we only got two, so we got to be ready. We got a lot of improvements to do before we open up.”
Some of those unsurprising issues to Barnes came on the offensive end. Not Tennessee’s eight-of-35 shooting from three-point range. The Vols’ 10th year head coach didn’t expect that but the issues attacking the basket and finding consistent scoring at the rim were not shocking.
“The first possession of the game I think we turned down three shots that we’ve got to take and then it just ends up not being what you want at all,” Barnes said. “We just didn’t move them the way we needed to. And that’s what we talked about really for, whether we’re playing Indiana or anybody that plays that type of defense, and just didn’t do a good job with it.”
Barnes treated the exhibition game like one. Certainly Tennessee wanted to win and the issues that presented themselves are not meaningless because of that fact but he also used the game to test things out and send a message.
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Highly touted North Florida transfer Chaz Lanier did not start and did not play in the final six minutes of the game. Lanier shot a horrible three-of-16 from the field but Barnes made it clear that it wasn’t the shooting woes that led to him benching the talented transfer.
“If he is open, we want him to shoot the ball,” Barnes said of Lanier. “You use these games to sometimes let guys understand, hey, we have talked about it, we have done it, you have got to play hard. At the end of the game, we went with our team that we thought gave us the best chance defensively. … It all comes down to how can you impact the game if you are not making shots.”
The other big test in the game came when Barnes sat Zakai Zeigler just over the midway point of the second half and went with a lineup that didn’t include either Zeigler or Jahmai Mashack and did include Darlinstone Dubar who played just five minutes.
Indiana promptly went on a 10-0 run that turned a four-point Tennessee lead into a six-point deficit. Zeigler was on the court for the end of the run but the Hoosiers were plus-nine during the three minutes that Zeigler sat during the exhibition.
“A lineup that I’m not sure we’ll play a lot,” Barnes said. “That’s the reason we took (Zeigler) out, went with that lineup at that time because I felt those guys out there at that point in time, without (Zeigler) and Jahmai on the floor, we wanted to see if they could maintain the level of intensity, if they could defend the way those guys defended when they’re on the court, and then see if they could play together on the offensive end.”
Tennessee has plenty it needs to do better before it opens up its season against Gardner Webb in eight days. Rick Barnes knows that and knew that entering the exhibition. The exhibition loss should make that clear to Tennessee’s players as they head down the home stretch of the offseason.
One Response
Better to work on the team in exhibition games than win them. Thats what they are for. Most teams need more of them.