Four quick takes on a tough night
Tennessee’s (8-8, 1-3) losing streak reached three games after a 70-60 loss to South Carolina (13-3, 3-0). It was as sloppy game on both sides but South Carolina proved more capable of overcoming its own mistakes.
1 — Vols just stumbled out of the gate — Tennessee came out flat and just simply didn’t look ready to play against a physically tough South Carolina team.
How bad was it? With 6:00 left to go in the first half Tennessee Tennessee had more than twice as many turnovers (9) as made baskets (4). All told, by the time the smoke had cleared on an awful first half the Vols had made six shots and turned the ball over 14 times. That’s borderline incredible.
The only thing perhaps more incredible than that stat was that Tennessee faced only a 27-21 deficit at the half despite all the self-inflicted wounds. That’s largely because South Carolina was nearly as bad when it came to ball security, committing 14 turnovers themselves.
Tennessee wasn’t quite as adept as the Gamecocks at turning those errors into points on the other end though. South Carolina got 11 of its first half points off of Tennessee turnovers and the Vols were fortunate it wasn’t more.
Give Tennessee some credit though, things looked like they might get out of hand when South Carolina pushed the lead to 27-12 on a three ball from Duane Notice but the Vols closed the half on a 9-0 run to keep themselves well within striking distance heading into the locker room.
It was a sloppy game that saw both teams finish with an eye-popping 22 turnovers, but South Carolina did a much better job of overcoming its mistakes by holding Tennessee to 32.7% shooting
2 — How much did they miss Mostella? — It’s impossible to say for sure, but from my vantage point they missed him a great deal, especially in what was an ugly first half of offensive basketball for the home team.
At one point in the first half the Vols went through a stretch where they missed 10 straight shots from the floor. Is it a guarantee that Mostella could have prevented such a cold streak from occurring? Of course not, but that’s precisely the kind of thing he’s been doing for this team for the better part of a month.
Tennessee had a horrible night from long-range, finishing just 1-of-11 behind the arc and you have to think that Mostella may have at least helped with that.
He was by far the team’s most prolific three-point weapon, making 26-of-71 attempts (37%) in 15 games. That’s the highest percentage on the squad for anyone with more than 18 attempts.
You also have to wonder—given the effort and lack of execution tonight—how much of an impact he had on team chemistry and simply the mental state of the Vols. They looked as flat and un-engaged at they have at any point this season. That happens at times over the course of a long year, but it seems like large coincidence that what seemed like the team’s worst performance of the season came hard on the heels of his dismissal.
3 — Make a lay-up!! — It’s one thing to be cold from the field. It happens in basketball. But for much of the first half Tennessee couldn’t buy a bucket from anywhere on the floor, and that most definitely included from point blank range right at the basket.
This was an egregious problem for just about the entirety of the first half. The Vols shot a miserable 6-of-25 in that first half (24%) and just four of those misses came from three-point range. Almost all the ineptitude came from within the paint.
Sure, some of those shots were contested but a great deal of them were excellent looks at the bucket that you assume a scholarship basketball player is going to finish on.
The Vols were credited with nine missed lay-ups in the first half alone, make just a couple of those and it’s potentially a different game at the half.
Given how frequently Tennessee was turning it over in the first half, the effect of missed scoring opportunities when they managed to actually take care of the ball long enough to get up a shot was even more damaging.
4 — Broken record…guard play — This has been an ongoing topic with this team and it certainly deserves a mention tonight.
Defensively, the Vols have been worse against opposing backcourts than they were tonight, but I don’t know that the backcourt has been worse offensively.
That’s not to say that the Vols were great defensively, Sindarius Thornwell got what looked like a fairly easy 22 points on 6-of-12 shooting but the more telling stat was the 7-of-13 (54%) the Gamecocks shot from three-point range. Many of those were of the uncontested variety either because of late closeouts or guys just simply getting lost on defense.
That kind of perimeter shooting from the opponent, coming immediately after Florida went 7-for-7 in the second half on Saturday, is a bit of a red flag.
Thornwell hit a crushing three-pointer after Vols had trimmed the lead to 50-43 with 7:58 left in the game. That shot pushed the lead back to double digits at 53-43 and while the Vols never exactly faded, it was an example of an opponent taking advantage of some spotty perimeter defense.
South Carolina shot 52% from the floor in the second half to prevent Tennessee from ever getting second half and the Gamecocks made their final four shots of the game.
On the other end of the floor, 14 of the team’s 21 turnovers came from the guard spots and Lamonte Turner was the only guy who was remotely effective on offense scoring 12 points on 2-of-4 shooting from the floor.
The rest of the Vols guards—Jordan Bone, Shembari Phillips, Kwe Parker and Jordan Bowden—were a combined 4-of-21 from the floor.
Turner also hit Tennessee’s only three-pointer of the night, which came with 1:48 left in the game.
Tennessee shot 1-of-11 from three point range and finished with just 10 assists as a team. The Vols don’t have enough players who can effectively create their own shots to play basketball that way and be effective.