There wasn’t much that went right for Tennessee in its 71-53 loss to No. 5 Villanova in the first game of the Hall of Fame Tip-Off, Saturday.
Villanova jumped out to a 9-0 lead, led for nearly 39 minutes —27 minutes by double digits— and shut down a Tennessee offense that had been stellar through two games against lesser opponents.
Embarrassing, wake up call, a game to forget. You name the cliché for a poor performance. They all apply to Tennessee’s first loss of the season.
Rick Barnes chose “lesson” and it’s certainly that for a young team that played six newcomers Saturday.
“I think the biggest thing we take from this is to understand exactly what it takes to become a great basketball team,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said postgame. “In terms of the multi-effort plays you have to make. We keep up with that. Multi-effort plays are really, really important. Consistently rebounding the ball is really important. Knowing that there are nights when you might not make shots. You can’t let that effect you and the way you play the game. That can’t take away your aggressiveness. I will look at it. Effort-wise, I am not sure anybody, there are some plays where the floor wasn’t bouncing at the end of the first half. VJ didn’t get back on the drive and things like that. That is just fundamental breakdowns. We have to correct any of those fundamental things we can correct.”
It was a lesson for Kennedy Chandler, who played by far his worst game as a Vol, making just one-of-nine shot attempts, picked up two first half fouls and had more turnovers (three) than assists (two).
“He’s going to learn a lot,” Barnes said. “I told him that when I took him out. I said I hope you’ve learned a lot today. A lot of the things you’ve gotten (away) with in the past, not going to happen anymore. The hook passes over your head in ball screens. You’re going to have to get more physical. Villanova is a big, strong, athletic team.”
It was a lesson for Tennessee’s newcomers. The group got punched in the mouth in its first taste of major college basketball. Against a veteran team, Tennessee was outclassed. Villanova played far more sound, limited its mistakes and outhustled the Vols for 40 minutes, even with a massive second half lead.
“There are a lot of people that haven’t played in these kind of games,” Tennessee guard Santiago Vescovi said. “I think just watching them and their effort and the way they dove on every single 50/50 ball, it will show us what we need to get to if we want to win the national championship. That is what it takes. I think this is good for us and it will help us learn — everyone on the team — with what we have to get to.”
Outside of a solid defensive performance, that’s the one positive from Saturday’s game. You play these challenging early season games to learn about your team and to test them.
Tennessee’s blowout loss to Villanova isn’t going to hurt them in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament committee. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. It is just one game in a 31-game season. If the Vols approach things the right way, the early season humiliating loss should help them.
It’s not that simple though. Some of the Vols’ flaws were exposed today, and that’s not simply the result of one poor performance. Tennessee’s offense has serious issues when Chandler is on the bench or not playing well. Even in a game where Santiago Vescovi scored a game career high 23 points, no one on Tennessee’s offense put pressure on Villanova’s defense besides Chandler.
Tennessee scored six points in the 7:22 Chandler sat on the bench after picking up its second foul. The Wildcats used that time to expand their lead from seven to 20 points effectively putting the game away.
The one caveat here is that Tennessee won’t shoot 17% from three-point range often this season, but when Chandler isn’t playing well and the triples aren’t falling this offense has serious issues.
Then there’s Tennessee’s frontcourt which was a complete non factor Saturday. No one played particularly bad down low for the Vols, but the group provided little resistance in the blowout loss.
The group combined for just six points.
Villanova punched Tennessee in the mouth and gave the Vols an early season lesson Saturday. We won’t have to wait long to see how Tennessee responds as the Vols return to the court tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET to face either Purdue or North Carolina.
