Tennessee basketball controls game vs. Texas A&M: Three takeaways

An 8-0 run broke a 6-6 tie early in the first half, and Tennessee basketball led the rest of the way en route to a 90-80 win against the Texas A&M Aggies. The Vols, who never trailed in the matchup, rebounded from a heartbreaking 52-51 loss at the Texas Longhorns on Saturday.

Rick Barnes’ team, ranked No. 22 in the AP Poll and No. 20 in the Coaches Poll, went on runs off 11-0 and 12-0 in the second half to complete this reversal in offensive play and win their fourth straight SEC game. An up-tempo game at Thompson-Boling Arena Knoxville, Tenn., went Rocky Top’s way.

With the win, the Vols improve to 15-6 and 6-3 in the SEC. They will next visit the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday. Buzz Williams’ Aggies, meanwhile, fall to 15-7 and 4-5 in the SEC with a visit from the Missouri Tigers set for Saturday. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee basketball’s victory.

1. Big plays on defense set the tone.

If you want to know how the Vols were able to break 90 points, look no further, than what they were able to do on defense. Sure, they allowed 80 points, but they had 12 steals and five blocks. That’s actually what got the offense going.

Olivier Nkamhoua’s15 points can be directly connected to his three blocks and seven rebounds. Josiah-Jordan James’ 14 points can be directly connected to his five steals, eight rebounds and one block. Kennedy Chandler had three steals, Zakai Zeigler and Santiago Vescovi each had two steals, and they all scored double figures.

2. Elite point guard play generated the offensive turnaround.

The big defensive plays allowed UT to score in tempo. However, Chandler and Zeigler, who were often on the court together, played incredible in this game, which allowed the offense to score out of its half-court sets. This is the other reason Nkamhoua had a successful output.

Such play is why Tennessee basketball went 11-of-26 from three. They had so many open looks. Vescovi was obviously the star, going 4-of-8 from three for 13 points. Chandler was aggressive driving to the basket as well, scoring 16 points, and Zeigler hit two threes, scoring 14 points. Justin Powell went 2-of-3 from the outside as well.

3. There are still too many dry spells, even on offense.

A game in which you score 90 points, shoot 50.9 percent from the field and have 22 assists shouldn’t warrant some offensive criticism, but in typical Barnes fashion, they still went ice cold at times in a bad way. There was a five-minute period in the second half where all they had was a free throw, but they only got off one jumper during that run.

Once again, the hesitancy to shoot was there. It’s easy to look past the 17 turnovers given the tempo, and there were a couple of bad calls, including an awful charge on Chandler, but Tennessee basketball can’t keep delaying its aggression on offense. They were so efficient in this game that they got past it, but that won’t last every game.