Tennessee Basketball: Rick Barnes's Vols Quit on the Season

After Tennessee basketball’s 10-point road loss to the LSU Tigers on Wednesday night, it is clear that the Volunteers have quit on the 2016-2017 season.

Going into the LSU Tigers game Wednesday night, Rick Barnes’s young Tennessee basketball team had its backs against the wall in terms of making the NCAA Tournament. The Vols were 15-14 overall and outside of the Top 60 in the RPI.

They got to that point not due to lack of talent but because they took games for granted. With Robert Hubbs III battling injuries and teams figuring out Grant Williams, the young guys could still not learn how to take mediocre teams seriously.

As a result, they blew huge leads to the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Georgia Bulldogs while also choking away a home game to the Vanderbilt Commodores.

Blowout road losses to the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Kentucky Wildcats also happened due to those factors.

Still, going into Wednesday night’s game against arguably the worst team in the SEC, this team was in play for the tournament.

They weren’t in, but they could play their way on the bubble.

Yet once again, they showed that they hadn’t learned their lesson.

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The Vols took the worst team in the SEC for granted. In a road game that should’ve just counted as a neutral court game given the lack of fans in the stadium, Tennessee basketball laid its worst egg of the year.

And it was clear why. They quit.

Hubbs was still clearly dinged up. But the Vols managed 82 points on offense against the worst defense in the SEC.

So how did they lose to a team on a 15-game losing streak? They played atrocious defense.

Coaching defense is Rick Barnes’s speciality. In the past, lack of intelligent plays on offense has been the reason for the Vols’ struggles.

But in this game, they gave up 92 points to the Tigers. And although LSU did shoot well from three, the biggest reason for their 92 points is because the Vols replaced defense with fouling.

Williams, the one freshman everybody loved, decided to foul all night rather than protect the paint. Admiral Schofield was no better off the bench.

And the guard play was atrocious all around when it came to perimeter defense.

Make no mistake, this was an effort issue, nothing else.

There’s only one explanation for this.

Coming into the game, the Vols were frustrated by the fact that they had played their way out of the NCAA Tournament. So they couldn’t get excited for the LSU Tigers, even though the tournament was still a possibility.

But they couldn’t realize why they played their way out of the tournament, and they made the same mistake Wednesday.

How does that happen?

Yes, this team is young, but they have played a full season now and should have learned some lessons. They didn’t.

And on Wednesday, with a chance to still make the postseason, they quit. They quit on their coach, their fans, and their team.

After beating the Kentucky Wildcats and playing a tough non-conference schedule, they clearly thought they were too good to play certain teams all year.

And they thought that once again Wednesday night. This team fails every time when there’s a nothing to gain, everything to lose game.

They decided to risk losing everything Wednesday.

It was an absolute embarrassment. And somebody needed to call it out.

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Tennessee Basketball: Rick Barnes’s Vols Quit on the Season

By Caleb Calhoun | Mar 2, 2017

After Tennessee basketball’s 10-point road loss to the LSU Tigers on Wednesday night, it is clear that the Volunteers have quit on the 2016-2017 season.