Vols can't overcome slow start vs. Zags, four quick thoughts
For the second straight Sunday afternoon Tennessee took on a top-10 opponent, this time squaring off against No. 8 Gonzaga. And, for the second straight Sunday the Vols are leaving the game feeling like they probably missed a golden opportunity at an upset because they were unable to string together two solid halves of basketball.
1 — Perimeter defense — Are you kidding? Gonzaga started the game 6-of-8 from three point range while racing out to a 33-14 lead with nine minutes left in the first half. Gonzaga was getting open looks in abundance and taking advantage of a Tennessee squad that simply looks rattled from the opening tip.
The Vols made matters worse by largely not being able to throw it in the ocean themselves early on. In the first 10 minutes of play Gonzaga shot 70% from the floor while Tennessee countered with a 22% effort from the floor. That created a hole that the Vols would spend the rest of the afternoon trying to dig their way out of.
That start pretty much doomed the Vols to a long afternoon.
Tennessee tightened things up considerably after watching the threes rain down on them with regularity in the opening moments, but Gonzaga is a prolific three-point shooting team and defending the line was a huge part of the scouting report for Tennessee. You wouldn’t have known that by watching the Vols’ on defense in the early going.
2 — That start though…— It’s an absolute broken record by now, but almost without exception this season, Tennessee has looked like a quality basketball team in one half of play and like well…something else in the other half.
Today’s poor start involved a great deal more than simply giving up a ton of great looks from three-point range in the first 10 minutes.
The Vols also struggled mightily to execute anything at all on the offensive end themselves, falling behind 33-14 in the first 12 minutes of play. All told Tennessee was an ugly 8-of-34 in the first half and it’s just hard to win against anyone shooting that poorly.
The real kicker for Tennessee is that had they been able to execute at all on the offensive end, they would have had a real shot at being in a close game at the half. Gonzaga turned the ball over 12 times in that first half, but the Vols couldn’t take advantage.
Finally, Tennessee could have gone into the half down 41-29 but gift-wrapped two points for the Zags when, with 2.1 left on the clock Lew Evans lazily tossed in an inbounds pass from the sideline in the backcourt that Nigel Williams-Goss stole and threw down for a dunk. That wasn’t the difference in winning or losing tonight, but it certainly didn’t help matters and gave the Zags a little momentum they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Just how harmful the start of the game was to the Vols’ was made clear when they more or less outplayed Gonzaga in the final 30 minutes of the game. They were so bad early on though that it simply didn’t matter.
3 — Guard play — This has been all over the map more less all season but against a talented and skilled backcourt like they faced today, the Vols lack of experience and/or proven playmakers really showed up.
Detrick Mostella got, real hot in the second half with 15 points and helped Tennessee trim the lead all the way down to four points but he didn’t get much help from any of his backcourt mates as far as scoring the basketball.
Kwe Parker made his biggest impact to date with some solid contributions, though not as a scorer. He led the Vols with four assists and committed zero turnovers but had just two points in 15 minutes.
Against a very good defensive team like Gonzaga though, you’ve got to be able to create some easy chances for yourself and make some open shots from outside when they come your way. Outside of Mostella, who was 6-of-15 and 5-for-12 in the second half, the Vols’ guards were 6-for-24 on the afternoon.
It stands to reason that this group will be better once Jordan Bone returns to action, which should happen in the next week or so, but right now it’s a deficiency.
It’s also a problem on the defensive end, as exemplified by Gonzaga’s trio of Nigel Williams-Goss, Jordan Matthews and Josh Perkins combining for 48 points on 15-of-26 shooting
4 — But they showed some heart… — Tennessee will be kicking themselves for the way this one went down. Had they done anything at all that resembled playing good basketball in the first 10 minutes of the game they probably leave Nashville with a win over the No. 8 team in the country.
After falling down 33-14 in the early going the Vols were the better team the rest of the way, and believe me, as bad as things looked it would have been easy to mail this one in after that start.
Tennessee settled down on defense and allowed the Zags to score just 11 points in the final eight minutes of the first half and continued to be much better on that end of the floor in the second half.
Similarly, the Vols were a little more solid on offense in the second half after an awful start, but not good enough to make up for all the self-inflicted damage they did to themselves in the first half.
Tennessee was 37% from the floor in the second half, which isn’t great, but was better than the 23.5% in the first half and made seven three pointers. Both marked improvements over how they started. They outscored the Zags 47-43 in the final 20 minutes, which no one could have seen coming after the way the game began, but it just wasn’t enough.
For the second straight Sunday in a row Tennessee is leaving a game against a top-10 opponent knowing that it could have pulled off the upset, but in both cases the Vols came up short when they couldn’t put two solid halves of basketball together.
So give them credit for fighting back after a brutal first half, but neither Barnes or his Vols will be taking any solace in another missed opportunity.