Tennessee basketball: Three takeaways from Vols 63-61 loss at South Carolina

In a heartbreaker, Tennessee basketball fell to the South Carolina Gamecocks on the road Saturday. Here’s what we learned from this Volunteers outing.

After two horrible calls cost them at the end of both halves, Tennessee basketball lost at the South Carolina Gamecocks 63-61 Saturday night. This delivered a major blow to the Vols’ NCAA Tournament hopes with a brutal road coming up.

In a game that started out as an insane defensive struggle, UT blew a 58-52 lead with under four minutes to go. Down by one with under 10 seconds left, John Fulkerson was called for a charge in what was clearly a flop. This came after a Jordan Bowden three was switched to a two on review because his foot appeared to be on the line despite no conclusive evidence.

With the win, S.C. improves to 16-9 and 8-4 in SEC play, and Rocky Top falls to 14-11 and 6-6 in SEC play. Up next for Rick Barnes’ team is a Tuesday night home game against the Vanderbilt Commodores. Here are three takeaways from Tennessee basketball’s Saturday loss beyond the atrocious officiating.

1. Turnovers returned.

South Carolina was that aggressive down low. The Vols had 20 turnovers on the night, and it didn’t all fall on Santiago Vescovi, who had four. John Fulkerson had six under the basket, and Uros Plavsic had three off the bench. While poor officiating helped, Frank Martin clearly did a good job with his aggression on the interior.

2. Vols bigs cashed in on South Carolina gambles.

Sure, they did have a lot of turnovers down low. But Tennessee basketball also scored a good bit in the paint as a result of the Gamecocks’ aggression. John Fulkerson led the way with 25 points and nine rebounds, and Yves Pons added 13 points and seven rebounds. Pons also had three blocks, so he was as aggressive as he could be.

3. Jordan Bowden did not look like the senior.

It’s one thing to miss shots, and Jordan Bowden was one-for-seven and 0-for-three from three with only five points. But he also wasn’t aggressive. In a night Josiah-Jordan James returned from injury, James looked like the veteran with nine off the bench. Bowden even deferred to James for the last shot. He’s got to get more confidence. Something’s up, and it proved costly in this game.