NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Life on the road continues to be unkind to Tennessee.

The No. 6 Vols unraveled over the last seven minutes of the first half Saturday, allowing Vanderbilt to pull in front and force them to play catch up the rest of the afternoon.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

It wasn’t until the final minute that Tennessee made its push to go back in front, but it came up short on a missed free throw from Chaz Lanier that resulted in a 76-75 loss at Memorial Gym.

Tennessee (16-2, 3-2 SEC) had far more issues than a missed free throw, though. The Vols were out-rebounded and out-scored in the paint by the Commodores (15-3, 3-2). They couldn’t string together enough stops on the defensive end and foul trouble forced their most important player in Zakai Zeigler to sit that critical stretch in the first half.

Here is everything Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said about the loss.

“They really play with four guards and we knew what they do. They do it very well. A lot of trying to really penetrate, put pressure on you constantly. We switched a few times. We didn’t do our coverage nearly as much as we wanted to. But again, I think you got to give Vanderbilt credit for that. I told the team the way we finished the first half was really not good. I mean, we got to stop fouling three-point shooters. And we left our feet, gave up two easy baskets at the rim, dug ourselves a hole there. Just proud of our guys for fighting back. We had a chance obviously, possibly to send it to overtime.

“But just give Vanderbilt credit. I thought they played hard. I thought they played with a real sense of purpose and got a lot in the lane on us. Which, again, you give them credit because they had to carve out and fight for that space and they got it. Too many second-chance points that we gave up. But again, you got to give them credit for that.”

“No, because I thought we could stay there. If you think about it, it ended, what was the score at halftime? We were down six. It was a two-point game. We were there and switched for no reason and then fouled a three-point shooter. And if we hadn’t switched, we had the coverage we wanted. But again, we just switched for no reason and gave a terrific shooter a wide-open shot and we fouled him. But no, we weren’t going to risk (Zeigler with two fouls) because I thought if we were able to just hold it right there. Again, we had that defensive lapse and it and hurt us. And we came out, again, give (Vanderbilt) credit. It’s about us. We’ve still got to improve and we can get so much better, but we’re going to have to do it.”

“We could have stayed right there with them. But again, it was just a simple defensive play that we didn’t handle. I mean, it was just no reason for it. And there was never a reason to foul a three. I thought Zakai’s three-point foul was ridiculous, that he would put himself in that situation. I mean, he fouled. He can’t do that. I mean, you’re talking about two seniors that, and I love him to death, we can’t foul three point shooters. And we’ve done it too much this year and we again, today we did it and those four points are huge. And it’s just we can’t do that.”

“I can’t tell you, other than we keep asking ‘Why are we doing this?’ You know, and I think it’s guys where they’ve got to understand that we haven’t had a lot of miscommunication problems this year, but we had some today. And again, all I can tell you right now, without looking at the film that we’ve got to give Vanderbilt credit for it. Because I don’t know why we were doing some of the things that we were doing.”

“(Vanderbilt) made some plays early. Obviously, they had a high level of emotion going, which is what you would expect, being at home and playing Tennessee. And they made some shots. Felix (Okpara) left his feet a couple of times. I thought he should have stayed down. I thought we should have made them see if they could have made some shots there. And they cleaned it up on the backside. But again, you got to give them credit for carving out that position to be there. And I didn’t think we had the same thrust on the offensive boards. I looked at a few clips at halftime, that we normally need to have. But tough thing, tough game, hard fought. And again, I got to give Vanderbilt a lot of credit. I think Mark (Byington) had his guys ready to play. I think he would say they probably executed. We did obviously a better job end of the game.

“ They had to lead and was probably trying to work the clock a little bit, got themselves into some shot clock violations, allowed us to kind of climb back in it. But it’s hard to coach when you gotta lead. It’s hard to coach when you don’t have one. But I’m proud of our guys for fighting back. They kept trying to hang in there and try to get something going and again, put ourselves in a position possibly, well we had the ball, we maybe could have shot a three to go for the win, but we weren’t willing to do that. We thought if we could get it to overtime, we’d take our chances there.”

“I’d give Mark (Byington) and his staff a lot of credit for it. I’d also give the players a lot of credit for it because we’ve seen it around the country where it hasn’t worked. If I were from the outside looking in, I would say what I would say about our guys, I think they knew what they were looking for. I think how he wants to play and I think he’s got guys to fit his system how he wants to play. And he’s got some high level portal guys and have been in big games and I think the thing he’s done, he would probably say he’s got his system he wants to play with it, and he’s got a group of guys that came in and bought into it.”

“You can’t do that. Some of the passes that were flipping into the backcourt. Falling over, those type things. You can’t do it. And every possession in this league is valuable. You look at every game, if all teams were playing well, you got to expect games like this every night. You don’t expect teams to get up big. But that’s the ebbs and flows of the game. But in the end you expect them to be hard fought close and you can’t throw lifelines out there. And those turnovers like that are just basically giving an opportunity to score points but just basically giving them points because we tell our guys all the time, there’s no defense for open court turnovers, there’s no nothing we can do. Bad passes that lead to those easy baskets and there’s just no defense for it.”

“Well (Lanier) is going to adjust. I mean people are being very physical with him. We can throw out freedom of movement. That rule’s gone. I mean they’ve made a big emphasis of it. I mean, I can say that both ways. I can say that against us. I mean if they’re gonna let, I can show you tape of us, everybody, guys coming off screen, arms are wrapped around them. I mean but if that’s the way they’re going to call the NCAA Tournament, that’s the way they’ve got to call this. And we’ve always said, I’ve always believed when you get in the NCAA Tournament from an official standpoint, they don’t replay no calls, normally. So they let guys, they let it go. If that’s the way it’s going to be. That’s good. So we can all adjust to it. But what’s really tough is when you’re in a league where they’re calling this and that.

“And I can tell you from experience that tournament is called different. Which I think it’s great and if we’re gonna do this now, we all have to adjust to it. But that rule is, we can forget that rule because there’s not a lot of movement out there. And I would say the same thing about the way we try to play.”

“I mean this is all new for him. I mean, Chaz (Lanier) is such a great person. I mean, he’s great. He’s so unselfish. I hate it for him. Our team does because he wants to win. But imagine four years ago, man, he was averaging two points a game. Last year, he had a good year. The next thing you know he is one of the most sought after players in the country. And he picked Tennessee for all the right reasons. And he’s very humble. Maybe not selfish enough in some regards because, I could tell him (to) do more, be more aggressive, do this, do that. But he’s learning to play at a whole different level. I mean it’s a whole different level. I mean the physicality that he has seen to this point, he didn’t get it ever.

“And it’s not going to change. So he’s gonna have to keep learning how to deal with it, and it’s gonna be movement, speed, getting separation. But I do think his teammates are trying hard to get him open. Everybody’s wanting to down him. We’ve talked enough about what options he’s gotta get to, but he’s just going to get to them quicker.”

“It’s going to happen. I mean, they’re a good team. I mean, we’ve had runs. We had a run like that the other night against Georgia. It’s gonna happen. I mean it’s basketball and again, you give them credit for it. I mean, some of it could be their defense creating this or that. It could be us having a wide open shot, missing it. And they had a run out tonight where we had a great look, they contested, took off, ball bounced the right way. I mean, it happens to all of us sometimes, but again our guys fought back, kept grinding, but didn’t have enough at the end to get it done.”

“I just talked about us as a team and again, I go back, the way we ended the first half is a big problem. I mean, I don’t know what kind of game everybody else expected, we expected that. Honestly, after the game, I talked (to Jahmai Mashack) and (Zakai Zeigler) more about it because they were the ones that fouled the three-point shooter, and then obviously Bishop (Boswell) as a freshman got a taste of what it’s like. That to me was a huge part. But again, they got up and we found a way to put ourselves back in position and just came up short.”

“Too competitive. Thinking they’re going to block a shot or stop everybody. Thinking we’re literally going to keep people from getting a shot off, and you can’t. You absolutely can’t foul a three-point shooter. It’s been all year. It hasn’t been just today, but by now, by the time you get to January, you gotta understand you can’t even put yourself close to that position, ’cause it’s amazing. They’ll call the least bit of contact on those, protecting the shooter, you know, because they feel he is airborne, he’s coming down. I’ve got no problem with that rule, but I got a problem if you put yourself in a position, you’re putting the referee in a tough position to make a call. I don’t think they want to, but you got to call the rules of the game. Very little contact, but contact is contact.”

“I thought early he had a chance to shoot the ball twice. He didn’t. And we’ve worked on it enough. I mean, he’s good at that. We talk about not forcing shots, but when shots are there, they’ve gotta be taken. Defensively, that’s really what it was. We kept thinking that, you know, we’re trying to get some defensive guys when we needed defensive stops. When (Mashack) is in the game, I thought he got himself in some tough situations at the end of the shot clock, but that’s not always on him. We gotta have cleaner possessions than that. Then you get down, we think we gotta get some offense, so we go that way. Maybe give up a little bit on the defensive end. I’ve told our team, we can play different lineups, but there’s certain things that can never give.

“We can’t give in on the defensive end regardless if we’re playing with, say (Dubar) and Igor (Milicic) Can’t give in there. Regardless, we can’t give in with rebounding. Offensively or defensively. And we had too much of that tonight.”

“It’s tough because, you know, (Okpara) is so good at it. He’s really made an impact the last couple games where he’s really—we wanted him to block shots, but we talked to him about it, and it’s hard. It’s easy (why) he would do it. But when the guy’s coming, all I would say again, you try to keep teams from getting angles on you to where they don’t get great looks at it. He’ll get better with it. What we’re talking about is when his defender is between his man and the basket close, let that guy try to finish the play (rather than) trying to come over and clean that one up. The angles, he’s gotta come up obviously. Felix is getting better. He’s put together a good year where he’s done a lot of good things for us.”

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