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Tennessee basketball trailed by five or less points during six meaningful possessions in the final 3:44 of its 78-73 loss against Kentucky on Tuesday night. During that time, Tennessee missed 11 of 12 three-point attempts as they failed to grab control of a game that the Wildcats seemed so willing to give away in the final minutes.
A lot of factors decide the results of a basketball game both on and beyond the stat sheet. But sometimes basketball is just a simple game.
Tennessee shot 11-of-45 from three-point range on Tuesday night. Kentucky shot 12-of-24 from three-point range. Sometimes those stats can even be a little misleading. The degree of difficulty on three-point shots can vary.
But according to ESPN stats and info, Tennessee shot eight-of-31 on uncontested three-pointers. Kentucky shot four-of-eight. To break down that math, Kentucky contested just 31% of Tennessee’s three-pointers. The Vols contested 67% of Kentucky’s three pointers. Kentucky still shot 26% better from beyond the arc.
“We had some guys (for Tennessee) shooting that we kind of wanted shooting,” Kentucky head coach Mark Pope said postgame.
“Of the 45, I would say 95% were wide open, but that was by design,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “That’s what (Kentucky was) looking for. And when we obviously weren’t making, they were going back up even more.”
It was a particularly brutal shooting performance for senior point guard Zakai Zeigler who made just one-of-11 three-point attempts. In his last two games, Zeigler has made just one-of-17 three-point attempts. The 5-foot-9 point guard is not an elite shooter but if he shoots just five-of-17, a mark still under his career average, than Tennessee likely beats both Kentucky and Auburn and is 6-2 in the SEC and still in the thick of the SEC Championship race.
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But the margins are razor thin in this elite season in the SEC and Tennessee’s most dependable player is in the worst shooting slump of his career.
Still, Tennessee’s offensive and shooting struggles are about more than Zeigler. It goes back to Barnes’ comment about teams daring the Vols to shoot three-pointers.
Tennessee built its roster this offseason to be a good three-point shooting team. Three of its four incoming transfers shot over 37% from three-point range last season on a significant number of attempts. Two of them shot over 40%.
Through eight SEC games, Tennessee is shooting 30.2% from three-point range. Two of those transfers are shooting under 30% from three-point range and Chaz Lanier is shooting just 34% from three-point range in SEC play after shooting over 45% from deep in non conference action.
And there’s few other areas to turn for efficient two-point offense. The Vols rank last in the SEC in conference games in two-point shooting percentage. JP Estrella’s season-ending injury hurts them there but the only player that can put pressure on the rim is a 5-foot-9 point guard.
“Igor (Milicic) and D-Stone (Darlinstone Dubar), that’s not what they do. But I do think that Cade (Phillips) and Felix (Okpara) can give us some of that. Are they going to make them all? No, but they need to touch it some. And we’ve talked about that enough, too.”
Okpara and Phillips are not strong back to the basket scorers. Can they score more there than they have? Sure. But not at a rate that’s going to significantly improve Tennessee’s offense.
Scoring at the rim is only going to become more-and-more difficult as teams keep packing the paint and daring Tennessee to beat them from deep.
It leaves Tennessee in a conundrum. Seemingly, the only way out of its offensive issues is to shoot the ball better from the perimeter and open up more options to score at the rim in the process. But the Vols have not shot the ball with any consistency from three-point range this season.
“I’m hoping at the right time, we’re going to knock them down, you know? Teams go through it,” Barnes said. “I do think we can shoot the ball. I do.”
Tennessee built its offense to be a good three-point shooting team. If they’re going to find an offensive rhythm this season then they’re going to have to shoot the ball well from three-point range. It’s simple. But that is the recipe.