Historically Bad Shooting Costs Tennessee Basketball as Vols Lose to Bruce Pearls Auburn Tigers
Rick Barnes’s Tennessee basketball team had a historically bad three-point shooting day en route to an 83-77 loss to Bruce Pearl’s Auburn Tigers Saturday.
The Tennessee Volunteers went 3-of-28 from the three-point line Saturday afternoon as they lost to the Auburn Tigers and former Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl on the road.
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Despite leading 36-34 at halftime on 34 percent shooting and going 1-of-13 from the field, the Vols somehow got worse in the second half. At one point they were 1-of-22 from the three-point line.
Auburn, meanwhile, improved to 7-5 after going 12 of 26 from three, as Bryce Brown and Kareem Canty had 20 points each and Tyler Harris dropped 19.
If you take away the poor shooting, the Vols did everything they would need to do to win this game. With Barnes’s tempo-based offense going up against Pearl’s, holding Auburn to 83 points should have been good enough.
But the team’s two best three-point shooters, Devon Baulkman and Kevin Punter, were a combined 0-for-11 from three. Punter made up for it with 31 points on better than 50 percent shooting, but it is still uncharacteristic of him to go 0-for-6 from beyond the arc.
Baulkman just had a bad game altogether, going 1-for-8 overall with 2 points.
Tennessee shot 38 percent from the field overall from the game, but that number looks a lot better on two-pointers. They also remained in the game by going 14 of 19 on free throws while Auburn went 15 of 27.
However, another reason for their loss was a bad performance from the duo in the paint, Armani Moore and Derek Reese. Tennessee missed a lot of shots from point blank range in the second half, and those two were a combined 1-of-10 from the field on the night.
Everything holding the Vols back in previous losses did not hold them back on Saturday. They simply found another way to lose, this time by bricking every three-pointer and missing underneath the basket.
The crazy part is at least 20 of the 28 shots from three were wide open looks, and the only person to make them was Admiral Schofield, who had hit six three all year and nailed two of the three for the Vols Saturday en route to 22 points.
In addition to Punter and Schofield, Robert Hubbs III came off the bench and had a nice, 13-point game, but he did not attempt a three.
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Tennessee falls to 7-6 on the year and 0-1 in the conference, and they aren’t done with the big games. Florida comes to town next Wednesday, and then comes in No. 20 ranked Texas A&M.