Tennessee basketball: It’s time to question Rick Barnes’ substitutions

Nobody would debate Tennessee basketball is in a shooting slump right now. Rather than address than issue after their loss on the road to the LSU Tigers this past weekend, though, Rick Barnes decided to tear into John Fulkerson.

In only 17 minutes of play, Fulkerson had just three points, and he went 3-of-6 from the free throw line. There’s no doubt he could have been better, even with the LSU bigs being too athletic for him at times.

Uros Plavsic made it look worse by scoring 12 points off the bench. Barnes addressed all of this after the game, calling out Fulkerson’s toughness and making no bones about the fact that he was the problem in this game.

Some of that may be true. However, UT could’ve overcome those issues down low with better shooting on the outside. They were one of the best three-point shooting teams at the beginning of the year, and once again, they struggled from beyond the arc, going 4-of-14.

The issue is simple. Barnes isn’t letting his best shooters get into a rhythm. We can talk all day long about Victor Bailey Jr. having a major drop-off this year. Well, how is it going to get any better when he only plays eight minutes a game, as he did Saturday? Bailey is hardly getting the green light to shoot himself out of this slump.

Justin Powell is even a more alarming story. He played only 10 minutes in this game and went 0-for-1 from the three-point line. Shooting 39 percent from the three-point line and needing some three-pointers to beat LSU would suggest Barnes should play him more.

Sure, Powell did struggle shooting the ball against the Ole Miss Rebels, but what are the chances he struggles two games in a row like that? You could maybe make the point that Barnes needed Josiah-Jordan James’ defense and Kennedy Chandler’s explosive abilities when trying to lead the comeback at LSU in the second half.

That is why those two can be forgiven for going a combined 2-of-10 from three, and if they occupy spots, Vescovi is a better proven shooter than Powell. However, if Fulkerson was such a problem, why wouldn’t Barnes go with four guards at that point?

Plavsic was the only big doing anything, and his points mostly came from LSU leaving him alone. He honestly should have done more. Olivier Nkamhoua wasn’t what he should have been with just nine points on six field goal attempts.

Simply put, Fulkerson deserved criticism for his play, but the bigs in general were not the mismatch the Vols needed them to be. Barnes’ way out of this was to try to let some of his shooters get into a rhythm from outside. He didn’t give them that chance.

We should not that this isn’t the first time Barnes has made such questionable decisions. Remember the Sweet 16 game against the Purdue Boilermakers in overtime three years ago? He began that overtime with Grant Williams on the bench.

These things are as alarming as the soft post play that was visible to everybody Saturday. Tennessee basketball has a long season ahead, and Barnes still may be experimenting with different lineups, but he can’t just hold Fulkerson responsible for what happened at LSU. He should rely more on his weapons outside.