Volunteers vs Longhorns
The current #1 Tennessee Volunteers men’s basketball team (2-1 in SEC) travelled to Austin, Texas to take on the struggling University of Texas Longhorns (0-3 in SEC) Saturday night inside the Moody Center. This competition served as a homecoming for Tennessee coach Rick Barnes who spent 17 seasons (’98- ’15) at the helm of this program and maintained a winning percentage of .691 before being let go after the 2015 season. With his former program joining the SEC, Barnes was almost certainly looking forward to delivering a W in Austin.
These two teams are each coming off of losses to SEC opponents in wildly different fashions earlier this week. Texas was coming off of a near win against what will likely be the new #1 team nationally in the Auburn tigers that appeared to build their confidence to play with the top teams in the SEC. Tennessee is coming off their first loss in the form of a 30 point beating at the hands of the #8 Florida gators that could only be taken as a humbling experience at this point in the season.
This was a back and forth slugfest between one team looking to recover their mojo and another that was trying to get off the ground in conference play with neither team leading by more than seven points at any point in the game. In the end it was the ability of the Volunteers to deliver at the free-throw line that staved off a resurgence from the longhorns.
First Half
This game started off with strong defensive performances from both teams with players flying around on defensive rotations and repositioning for rebounds to extend possessions. At the first media timeout the score was just eight to six a full five and a half minutes into the ballgame. This defensive pace would remain high and the score low as the opposing team probed for weaknesses to exploit and to settle into their groove offensively.
Photo Credit: Andrew Ferguson
Small oscillating five to six point flurries from both teams in the form of easy high percentage baskets off of dribble penetration and offensive rebounding for the volunteers driven by 6’11” junior forward Felix Okpara. For the longhorns, these runs were the result of isolation and skillful jumpsuit creation by Senior guard Tramon Mark and by freshman sensation Tre Johnson. A made three pointer by Johnson would carry momentum into halftime with the Volunteers leading the Longhorns by a score of 33-31.
Second Half
In the second half we would continue to see a series of small runs where neither team could quite inflict their will on the other. After the first TV timeout, the longhorns were up 40-37 on the Volunteers. Each team seemed to have advantages over their opponent with Tennessee continuing to get easy baskets off of effort plays and dribble penetration. Texas on the other hand was still reliant on the shot making of Tre Johnson along with some help from Jordan Pope who added 12 points in the second half for the longhorns.
With about 12 minutes left to play in the game, Tre Johnson would score 10 points in under two and a half minutes, which ended with a dunk with 11:36 left to play. This kind of run is one that should have out Texas in a great position to win the game, but due to the persistence and ball movement of Tennessee, the longhorns led just 50-48. From this point the Volunteers would focus on stifling Johnson on defense and forcing the rest of the Texas team to win the game.
The senior point guard for Tennessee, Zakai Zeigler began to impact the game much more directly down the stretch, with 10 of his tam-high 16 points and two assists in the final two minutes of this game. After an eight point run in just over a minute of play, the Volunteers went up 66-60 with just 2:47 to play. Following a missed jumper from Tre Johnson, the Longhorns were forced to foul to make Tennessee try to win at the free-throw line. Unfortunately, this tactic did not work as this veteran Tennessee squad stepped up and went six for eight in the final 32 seconds of the game, with Texas unable to capitalize on the offensive end.
A Tale of Two Teams
As even as this game was on the scoreboard, the underlying drivers of the offensive parity between these two teams were very different. For Texas, the streaky shotmaking kept them in contention as Tre Johnson appears more and more to be built for the next level of competition. Johnson was put in and capitalized on several isolation sets along the baselines where he was able to go to his turnaround jumper to put Tennessee against the wall. Once Tennessee started doubling this action, the run went away and the scoring had to come from other players.
Tennessee on the other hand overwhelmed the longhorns on the glass and defensively. As has been hinted in the previous sections, Tennessee did not appear to struggle so much on offense because they out-rebounded Texas 41-27, with Texas only recording 13 defensive rebounds compared to the 17 offensive rebounds delivered by the Vols. It was thanks only to the Longhorns having only five turnovers against Tennessee’s 15 that this game was even close. Unless Texas corrects their drive to secure rebounds at the ends of possessions, it is unlikely that they will have much success in an SEC filled with physical, defense-minded teams.
Tennessee moves on to 2-1 in the SEC and will welcome the Georgia Bulldogs to Rocky Top on January 15th at 7:00 p.m. Georgia is coming off of a 10 point win against #17 Oklahoma and have an extremely aggressive front court that will challenge the Volunteers to perform better than they did against Texas. The Longhorns slide to 0-3 in the SEC but will have a chance to take on their rival Oklahoma on January 15th at 9:00 p.m. Both games will run concurrently on the SEC network
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