Tennessee basketball: Three takeaways from Vols’ failed comeback bid at Texas

An epic comeback bid fell just short for Tennessee basketball Saturday night in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge at the Texas Longhorns Saturday night. The Vols trailed 51-35 with five and a half minutes to go in Rick Barnes’ return to where he coached for 17 years, but they then went on a 16-0 run to tie it up with a minute to go.

With a chance to take the lead, Zakai Zeigler had a shot blocked, and Santiago Vescovi missed a three-pointer. Timmy Allen hit a free throwwith six seconds left after a Josiah-Jordan James foul that wasn’t a foul. James missed a potential game-winning three to secure a 52-51 win for Texas.

Rocky Top, ranked No. 18 in the AP Poll and No. 20 in the Coaches Poll, falls to 14-6 and remains 5-3 in the SEC with a visit from the Texas A&M Aggies set for Tuesday, Jan. 1. Chris Beard’s Longhorns, meanwhile, improves to 16-5, remains 5-3 in Big 12 play and will visit the Texas Tech Red Raiders Tuesday. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee basketball’s loss.

1. Offensive droughts wasted a good defense.

Although Texas shot the ball well, they were held to 52 points. Why? the Vols forced 18 turnovers. Kennedy Chandler had four steals, and Santiago Vescovi had another three. The team as a whole forced 18 turnovers. However, a horrendous offensive performance proved costly. It was made worse by Vescovi having an off-night, going 0-of-5 from the three-point line.

James was 3-of-7 for three en route to 11 points, and Zeigler was good off the bench, going 2-of-4 from three en route to 12 points, but outside of them, the offense was horrible. UT went 19-of-53 from the field, or 35.8 percent, and 5-of-18 from three, or 27.8 percent. They also had four shot-clock violations. This explains their 35 points through the first 35 minutes.

2. Free throw shooting was unacceptable.

Even with awful efficiency and ball movement on offense, Tennessee basketball should have been able to win the game. After all, they did only have 11 turnovers. However, free throw shooting ended up proving costly, which is something that shouldn’t happen to a Barnes-led team.

The Vols shot 8-of-16 from the foul line. Vescovi shockingly went 1-of-2, and he should be automatic. Uros Plavsic was 2-of-6 from the free throw line, and Olivier Nkamhoua was 3-of-5. John Fulkerson missed his one attempt off the bench. Overall, the three main bigs were awful from the line, and just being halfway decent would have won them this game.

3. Rebounding was a positive.

Although they were awful from the free throw line, the Vols’ were solid on the glass. They outrebounded Texas 32-29 despite Texas missing half as many shots from the field. Sure, their free throw shooting was awful too, as they went 5-of-12, but overall, they had far fewer misses that UT could rebound. They still won the battle.

This was due to offensive rebounding, as Tennessee basketball got 15 of them. If they could just score and hit free throws, that would have made a difference. Nkamhoua led the way with eight, and if they can fix their offensive woes, this is one good sign for them going forward.