Tennessee picked up a huge road win on Wednesday night versus Georgia, 86-85. It was the second straight win for the Vols, and the game was decided by a clutch defensive possession down the stretch.
Down the stretch, Tennessee was up 86-83 in overtime with 14 seconds left. The Vols had an amazing defensive possession to win them the game. Georgia brought the ball up somewhat slowly and had some action to get Blue Cain the ball. Okpara switched and played great perimeter defense on the play. With five seconds left, Cain was forced to give the ball up to Marcus Millender, who was tightly defended by Amari Evans. Evans went for a steal, and Millender was met by Bishop Boswell, who wasn't going to let a three happen without a contest. Boswell eventually let Millender pass him, who scored a layup with 0.6 seconds to make the game 86-85.
Rick Barnes had a strategy: No threes
Georgia head coach Mike White said, “We ran some action to get Blue potentially downhill to his right hand. And then we were running some misdirection pin down toward the top of the key action with Smurf, which we’ve had a lot of success with him getting open ones, and they switched it. "
White went on to talk about how the Vols' switches caused issues for his team. White said, "Again, their early defense against that action was good to where we didn’t get a clean look with their switch, and then that’s what caused a little bit of chaos.”
Rick Barnes on the final possession said, “Well, with that much time, we were thinking they could take it to the basket like they were. We were switching, and they did a nice job of keeping the guard back, and the guard was getting down the lane on our post player and getting to the rim. We were going to switch out and weren’t going to foul. We were switching, and if they were going to shoot a three, we wanted to contest it. But early we were thinking we just got to guard, guard, guard. And our guys did a really good job. They really did a good job.”
Tennessee’s defensive approach on the final possession sealed the win. Rick Barnes was comfortable giving up a two-point attempt, as long as the Vols took away the three. Tennessee locked in along the perimeter, eliminating any clean looks from beyond the arc. When Cain had the ball, Okpara stayed tight, ready to contest anything he put up. Once Cain kicked it out to Millender, Evans and Boswell allowed him to drive, but took away the three, knowing a layup would bleed the final seconds off the clock. By the time the ball went through the net, there was essentially no time left.
The Vols played sound defense down the stretch, which helped carry them to the win. They’ll need to bring that same defensive intensity against Auburn on Saturday night if they want to keep the winning streak alive.