Tennessee basketball humiliated at Florida 75-49: Three takeaways
How in the world did this happen? After getting up to No. 6 in both polls, Tennessee basketball suffered an embarrassing setback on the road, falling 75-49 to a Florida Gators team that has struggled with consistency all year.
The Vols never led after going up 2-0 in the game and fell behind by 11 at halftime and then by 20 with 11 minute to go by allowing UF to go on an 11-0 run in the second half. They cut it to 11 but then allowed Florida to go on a 13-0 run to take complete control of the game. UT was without Jaden Springer, but Florida has been without Keyontae Johnson, so that’s no excuse.
With the loss, Tennessee basketball falls to 10-2 and 4-2 in the SEC and will host the No. 13 ranked Missouri Tigers Saturday. Florida improves to 7-4 and 4-3 in the SEC and will visit the Georgia Bulldogs Saturday. Before looking ahead to then, here are three things we learned from the Vols’ humiliating defeat in this game.
1. Bigs were soft all night.
To be fair, John Fulkerson was the only efficient scorer on the team, dropping 15 points and five assists on 6-of-9 shooting and going 3-of-3 from the free throw line. However, he had three turnovers, only four rebounds. Beyond Fulkerson, though, Yves Pons was worse, with five points and four rebounds. Olivier Nkamhoua, Uros Plavsic and E.J. Anosike didn’t help much off the bench.
UT was outrebounded by Florida 44-36. Both Pons and Fulkerson got into foul trouble. The story from Florida, though, was Omar Payne, who came away with five blocked shots and nine rebounds on the day. This shouldn’t happen to a Rick Barnes coached team. Mike White’s kids just dominated them inside.
2. Shooting was horrendous all the way around.
Don’t worry. Tennessee basketball’s big men were hardly the only, or even biggest reason they were blown out in this game. The Vols shot awful from the field. Outside of Fulkerson, nobody hit double digits. As a team, they were 17-of-58 from the field, or 29.3 percent, and 3-of-18 from the three-point line, or 16.7 percent.
Beyond all that, though, free throw shooting was atrocious. UT went 12-of-25 from the foul line, or 48 percent. Keon Johnson was 2-of-7 from there, and Victor Bailey Jr. was 2-of-6. Guards who can shoot should never struggle like that. For what it’s worth, Nkamhoua was 0-for-2 as well. Florida was average shooting the ball, but Rocky Top was so horrendous it made a difference.
3. Turnovers exacerbated the issues.
Soft play down low and uncharacteristically bad free throw shooting would be enough to assure Florida a win. Bad shooting across the board would be enough to assure them a somewhat comfortable win. A turnover problem is enough to assure them a blowout win, and that’s what the Vols suffered.
With 18 turnovers on the night, Tennessee basketball failed to rebound, hit its free throws or take care of the ball, a formula for losing. Bailey, the veteran guard, was the biggest culprit, committing five turnovers with only four points in what was easily his worst game this season. As a team, though, everybody struggled, and this was the final piece of the puzzle to embarrass the Vols.