The Tennessee basketball team has had a solid year, but after losing to Vanderbilt on Senior Day, many fans are upset at the trajectory this season has taken. Sure, Nate Ament was out, but the Vols still had the rest of their roster available, and Ja'Kobi Gillespie turned in one of his worst performances in a Tennessee uniform. Tennessee has put together a solid season overall, but the Vols have yet to find the level of consistency needed to truly compete at the top week after week.
Rick Barnes has grown frustrated with this, too. When asked about the Vols guards not playing through the post, he offered a significant response.
“I wish I could answer that, because we’ve talked about it all year," said Barnes. "We have. And again, I ask the question why, and their answer is mostly, ‘I don’t know.’ Some of it is a lot of guys that haven’t played with post players, that may be some of it. "
Barnes thought Tennessee had also turned the corner, but they didn't.
"But by now, there’s really no excuse. I mean, if I’m up here and I’m just talking the talk. And we know what we should be doing. We established that the other night (at South Carolina). And we thought we finally had gotten the balance that we wanted, but evidently we didn’t."
Finally, the turnovers are the killer that has hampered this team all year and Barnes knows it.
"And just the turnovers, the way you start the game, throwing it out of bounds, getting picked, all those plays, you can’t do that this time of year.”
Tennessee needs to play through the post
When Tennessee is dominating inside, it is a completely different team. The Vols have the ability to dominate inside with Felix Okpara, J.P. Estrella, and Jaylen Carey. When those players are playing well, Tennessee becomes a very difficult team to guard. Their presence in the paint also opens things up for the guards, allowing them to kick the ball out for open threes or attack the lane for easy layups.
Tennessee got away from this against Vanderbilt and it bit them. The Vols dominated South Carolina last week with pick-and-rolls and lobs down low, so it's surprising this wasn't something that Gillespie wanted to keep trying when running the offense. Barnes is absolutely right that this is a major focal point of the offense, and Tennessee cannot get away from it.