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Tennessee basketball: Injuries, pandemic excuse underachieving year

By Caleb Calhoun

Mar 12, 2021; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers players check on Tennessee Volunteers forward John Fulkerson (10) after he was hit in the head by Florida Gators forward Omar Payne (not pictured) on a play during the second half at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 12, 2021; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers players check on Tennessee Volunteers forward John Fulkerson (10) after he was hit in the head by Florida Gators forward Omar Payne (not pictured) on a play during the second half at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports /
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Remember last summer, when everybody learned Tennessee basketball was set to return its All-SEC leading scorer and its the SEC Defensive Player of the Year while adding two five-stars? Of course expectations were set to be through the roof.

What if you were told then, though, that the leading scorer would be knocked out of the NCAA Tournament due to injury, Rick Barnes would have no real time to develop the freshmen and the defensive player of the year and one of the five-stars would miss time due to injuries themselves? Obviously, you would tamper the expectations a bit.

Given that fact, why are people shocked by Tennessee basketball going 18-9 and losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to the Oregon State Beavers? Everything that was thrown the Vols’ way this past year makes the disappointment easy to explain.

Look, Rick Barnes isn’t beyond criticism. He’s definitely struggled in big moments dating back to his years with the Texas Longhorns. However, the circumstances surrounding the 2020-2021 season should allow for a mulligan, and this is one of those mulligans.

We can start with the superstar freshman, Jaden Springer and Keon Johnson. COVID-19 limited the amount of practice time Barnes had with them before the season started. As a result, he wasn’t able to get them acclimated to his system.

If that’s not an excuse, then why did John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats have a losing record? Why did Mike Krzyzewski and the Duke Blue Devils miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the mid-1990s? Both rely heavily on elite freshmen talent, and neither did as well as Barnes did this year.

Now, you could point out that Barnes had more experienced players, as he was combining the freshmen with John Fulkerson, Yves Pons, returning 2019 five-star Josiah-Jordan James and 2019 Oregon Ducks transfer Victor Bailey Jr., who was now eligible. That’s all true.

However, without the five-star talent, you’re just looking at a team constructed similarly to the one that went 17-14 the previous year and lost its best scoring guard in Jordan Bowden. Simply put, that team is not very good.

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So Barnes is returning a not very good team and throwing a couple of five-stars on it that he can’t even develop. Why should everybody expect a Final Four run out of that? It makes no sense, but the way the season played out made the expectations even more unfair.

UT battled injuries all season. In the Vols’ first three losses, to the Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida Gators and Missouri Tigers, they didn’t have Springer for longer than five minutes, who developed into their best backcourt scorer. He missed the entire games against Alabama and Florida.

When Tennessee basketball lost to the LSU Tigers, Pons was coming back from injury and not his usual athletic self to guard the interior. James, their do-it-all combo guard, missed their home loss to Kentucky, and the absence of his defense allowed UK to have its most efficient offensive output of the season. He then played injured against the Auburn Tigers.

Then came the SEC Tournament, and just as everybody returned to full strength, the Vols lost Fulkerson due to that hit to the face he suffered against the Florida Gators. That cost them against Alabama and Oregon State, where they couldn’t generate their inside-out half-court offense.

Rocky Top lost one game all year at full strength, a weird one to the Ole Miss Rebels. They fell 52-50 in that one, but we should note that Kermit Davis’ complex zone is tough for any team dominated by freshman guards, particularly ones that didn’t have time to develop.

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Simply put, it’s easy to explain why Tennessee basketball didn’t meet expectations this year. The Vols weren’t loaded with veterans, and they struggled with elite freshmen the way every coach struggled with elite freshmen this year. Add in the fact that there was a key injury in eight of their nine losses, and this team never had a chance to put it all together.

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