Tennessee basketball: Three takeaways from Vols’ 75-70 loss at No. 9 Arizona

In a battle of top 10 teams, Tennessee basketball came up just short on the road Saturday night against the Arizona Wildcats. The Vols, ranked No. 6 in the AP Poll and No. 7 in the Coaches Poll, fell 75-70 to the No. 9 ranked team in both polls.

UT came back from a 10-point deficit with just over seven minutes left to cut it to one with four minutes left. However, Arizona held on for the win down the stretch, going on a 5-0 run to make it 71-65 with 90 seconds left after Rocky Top cut it to one.

Arizona moves to 10-1 and will next host the Montana State Bobcats Tuesday. Tennessee basketball falls to 9-2 and will next host the Austin Peay Governors Wednesday. Here are three things we learned from the Vols’ loss Saturday.

1. Foul disparity was the difference.

There seemed to be a bit of favoring the home team in this one, as the Vols had 24 fouls to Arizona’s 15. Both teams shot at least 80 percent from the field, but Arizona shot 27 free throws to UT’s 10. It didn’t help that Uros Plavsic picked up an unnecessary technical early in the game, turning a four-point UT lead to a one-point Arizona lead.

However, too many calls were missed too. With about 40 seconds left and down 71-67, Santiago Vescovi was fouled on a drive to the basket. Tyreke Key was then fouled trying to get the loose ball. Neither foul was called, and that proved extremely costly.

2. Vols held their own in the paint.

All the talk going in was about Azuolas Tubelis and Oumar Ballo down low for Arizona, and they lived up to that hype with 19 and 18 points respectively. However, Tennessee basketball didn’t play too poorly in the paint themselves. Olivier Nkamhoua finished with 16 points and five assists.

Although they were outrebounded 38-30, it could have been much worse. Despite his issues, Plavsic had six boards in just 19 minutes. Tobe Awaka and Jonas Aidoo were serviceable. Look, Arizona won the paint. Julian Phillips had two points and was 0-of-5 from the field. Still, they didn’t dominate, and that kept it interesting.

3. Both teams struggled from outside.

Since Arizona was still the better team in the paint, Tennessee basketball needed to be better from outside. Again, though, they were only slightly better. Arizona was 5-of-24 from three, but the Vols were only 8-of-27. Now, Nkamhoua went 2-of-4 from three, and Zakai Zeigler went 3-of-6 en route to 21 points.

Tyreke Key was 2-of-7, though, and Vescovi was 1-of-7. They had eight and nine points respectively. On the other side, Courtney Ramey was 4-of-9 from three, so he did his part with 13 points. Tennessee basketball did win on the perimeter with defensively, getting eight steals, but it wasn’t as dominant as it needed to be.