Vols focused on big picture after road loss at Texas A&M

Rick Barnes is far from hitting the panic button after Tennessee’s latest loss.

A week to the day that the Vols went into Rupp Area and put on an offensive showcase and scored more than 100 points in a key road victory over Kentucky, Tennessee found itself on the other side late Saturday in College Station.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.

ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.

Texas A&M could seemingly hit a shot from anywhere it wanted on the court, taking an early lead which swelled to more than 20 at times and never trailing to hand the Vols their third conference loss in a 85-69 decision at Reed Arena.

And so is life in the SEC.

On a weekend where the Vols had a chance to make headway in the league's regular season title race, Tennessee is instead in the same spot where it started. But as far as the Vols' big picture aspirations, little has changed.

"No (I'm not concerned with the performance) I mean, it’s college basketball. A long way to go," Barnes said. "I tell everybody, you go back a year ago, the team that won the national championship (UConn) went through a five game skid this time of year and got it going at the right time. And it only hurts you if you don’t learn from it. And if you don’t respond from it. You look at it and can be honest with yourself individually. And we as coaches, we break down what we didn’t do a good job with.

"And I think we got a program that’s transparent with each other. We’ll talk about that, but still, you look at it, we got it down to 12 and plenty of time, but couldn’t move the needle past that.”

WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee falls flat in road trip to Texas A&M

Tennessee was able to give itself a chance late, like it has in a number of games this season, even coming all the way back to win on the road in a few of those games. But the Vols were never able to dig themselves out the hole Texas A&M put them in in the first half.

The Aggies connected on 11 3-pointers, eight of which came in the first half as Tyrece Radford scored a game-high 27 points and likely SEC Player of the Year candidate Wade Taylor IV totaled 25.

“Probably more one-on-one. We knew again, Wade (Taylor IV) can make some shots, which he did in the first half," Barnes said. "And we had some looks, but they didn’t go down. And it still got back to one-on-one. And we talked about how hard we’re going to work to keep them from us getting too spread out and letting them get downhill with it. And they, again, they were willful drivers and they did a good job finishing around the rim.”

For a Tennessee team that pride itself on its defensive identity, it was rare to see another team show so much aggressiveness and find success.

Texas A&M shot 50% from deep in the first half and though it cooled off some in the second, it was able to attack the rim, going another 50% from the field over the final 20 minutes.

"(Texas A&M) was hitting tough shots," Jahmai Mashack said. "They were playing good. They were getting to where they needed to get to. They were driving and we didn't really give them a lot of resistance...If you don't guard the ball well on (Tryece) Radford and Wade (Taylor IV), they're going to get to the spots they need to get to."

Tennessee looked out of its element on the offensive end, too.

The Vols' leading scorer in Dalton Knecht missed lengthy stretches in the second half with foul trouble before returning and making back-to-back threes to cut their deficit down to 12. He finished with a team-high 22 points while Zakai Zeigler, who was on the floor for 40 minutes, totaled 15.

Tennessee entered the game as one of the best ball-sharing teams in college basketball, averaging 17.0 assists per game, but had only 11. At the free throw line, where the Vols struggled in its lost to South Carolina last week, the team went just 15-of-25.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Key takeaways: Not much more room for error in Vols' SEC title hunt

For the second-straight game, Tennessee lost on the boards. LSU's success in grabbing offensive rebounds and providing extended possessions nearly helped the Tigers erase what was at one point a 23-point deficit before the Vols pulled away down the stretch.

Tennessee couldn't overcome those deficiencies at Texas A&M. The Aggies, who were second in the league in rebounding with more than 43 per game, out-rebounded the Vols, 43-35, including 14 offensive boards which helped them to 15 second chance points.

"“We need to pass the ball. We need to make shots. We’re going to shoot the ball. We think we’re a good shooting team, but we've got to make some shots," Barnes said. "...That’s not what the difference in the game was. The difference in the game was, we did a poor job at the free throw line...but there’s extra possessions. I mean, think about it, nine offensive rebounds, that’s nine more possessions (that) they (could) score from it.

"I mean, right there in itself says a lot. I mean, we came up with 14 and we ended up with 12, but when we were trying to get back in it, it’s those extra possessions they got that hurt us.”

There's still plenty of reason for Barnes' confidence to remain, though. One off night on the road when the home town shot well above its season average shouldn't necessarily be indicative of how Tennessee will perform in March.

Still, there are aspects that the Vols will need to fix going forward so they don't become trends that haunt them later, especially with a daunting back-half of a schedule that features ranked match ups with Auburn, Alabama, South Carolina and Kentucky.

"It is a long season and stuff like this happens," Mashack said. "It's an away game. It's a good team. They're on a run. It seems like we're getting good teams when they're just at the peak of their run and getting that momentum...It's tough, but it is a long season and this game is not going to dictate how we play in March. We're going to be an even better team in March. We're going to fix some things around.

We're definitely going to fine-tune a lot of things. But it's not March yet. And that's what we're really focused on."

–––––

– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.

– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.

– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @TMansfieldMedia, @ByNoahTaylor, @RealTBannerman, @RyanTSylvia, @Dale_Dowden, @ShayneP_Media, @TylerIvens.

–––––