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Tennessee Basketball: Vols Looking for First Road Win of Season at Georgia Bulldogs

By Caleb Calhoun

Jan 6, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; The Tennessee Volunteers enter the court before the game against the Florida Gators at Thompson-Boling Arena. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 6, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; The Tennessee Volunteers enter the court before the game against the Florida Gators at Thompson-Boling Arena. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports /
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The 8-7 Tennessee basketball team will be looking for its first road win of the season Wednesday night as the Volunteers face the Georgia Bulldogs.

As of right now, the Vols know they should be 2-0 at home in the SEC and 2-1 in the conference. They blew a huge chance to beat a Top 25 team in the Texas A&M Aggies over the weekend.

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And that will make things a heck of a lot more difficult for Rick Barnes and his staff going forward.

This team needs to steal all the wins it can to have some breathing room, and while they have fought like heck to stay in every game, they have had serious trouble closing the deal.

Now, they are in danger of falling to .500 on the year by traveling to Athens to face the 8-5 Georgia Bulldogs, one of them most inconsistent teams in all of college basketball this year.

Under the leadership of sixth-year head coach Mark Fox, the Dawgs have lost to Chattanooga at home, but they also have solid wins against Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Missouri.

And they lost to the 12-3 Ole Miss Rebels on the road by only one point just this past Saturday.

The best part about this game for the Vols is they actually have a great match-up advantage here. Georgia will not have much of a size advantage given that they only have one player over 6’8″ who regularly plays that many minutes. But they have many players that size with huge builds, similar to what Cuonzo Martin searched for at Tennessee.

So Barnes’s tempo should be perfect against the Dawgs if the Vols can hit their shots. Just like the story has been all year, Tennessee cannot afford to miss layups from point-blank range or shoot abysmal from three.

Kevin Punter should actually have a strong night again, and if Admiral Schofield continues his progression, the Vols should have a good night. But, like Barnes said, Robert Hubbs III has got to play better, and Armani Moore could do a better job handling point-forward duties, particularly in this game.

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The Bulldogs are favored by 5, but if they play the way they’ve been playing, the Vols have a great chance to pull off the upset.

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