Vols looking for leadership in midst of shaking up the vibe
Tennessee was embarrassed inside of Rupp Arena on Saturday afternoon, losing to No. 18 Kentucky 107-79.
It marked the first time a Tennessee team under Rick Barnes had given up 100 points in a game before. It was also the most points Kentucky had ever scored against the Vols in 233 meetings.
Tennessee caught Kentucky on the wrong day. The Cats shot 67.9% from the field for their best shooting night in a conference game in 25 years. They also shot a season-high 61.1% from three and were 20-of-21 from the free throw line.
The Vols themselves shot 53% from the field, the best they’ve shot in over a month. And they shot 48% from three, the best in over two months. But Kentucky’s season-high 1.55 points per possession were too much to overcome.
“It was a great day for Kentucky,” Barnes said. “It was almost like they had a magnet in the rim.”
Tennessee may have caught Kentucky on the wrong day, but it also gift-wrapped several points to the Cats. The Vols turned it over a season-high 20 times that led to 32 Wildcat points off turnovers and 27 fastbreak points.
It marked the second consecutive Saturday the Vols were embarrassed. They were sloppy in a 79-67 loss to LSU in Baton Rouge last week, a game it trailed by as much as 20 in at one point.
“We’ve got to do a better job,” Barnes said. “I’ve got to do a better job.
“The fact is, we’ve got to really look at it and see what we do. Maybe it’s changing the vibe of our team, whatever it may be. But we’re going to have to take what we learned here today and certainly learn from it.”
Tennessee will have to lean on its leaders in order to prevent any more embarrassing outings. Even the team’s leadership seems to be a source of concern, however.
When Barnes was asked following the game who he believes will speak up in practice this week, he hesitated before providing two surprising names.
“Uros (Plavsic) and Jahmai Mashack,” Barnes said. “They are the ones that when they talk, it is very authentic.
“Zakai (Zeigler) has gotten that kind of respect if he wanted to do it, but it’s tough to ask a freshman to do that. Santi, maybe. This is when you hope some of that is developed, I would say. If you ask me of the guys that started, I am not sure if I can pinpoint any one of them. Maybe that is going to be a great lesson for us that somebody will decide enough is enough, this is what we need, this is how we need to go about this.”
“I don’t think it’s one person or just a couple of people,” junior guard Josiah-Jordan James added. “We all value everybody’s opinion and everybody’s voice. The walk-ons, the people that don’t play, the people that play a lot — everybody has a voice and when they speak everybody should listen and it should have an impact on everybody.”
Barnes himself admitted that the leadership hasn’t been where it’s needed to be the last couple of years. Pair that with hesitancy in his voice when asked about who the leaders are on his current squad and it’s hard not to be concerned about the Vols figuring things out.
“At the end of last year and the start of this year, all we talked about was leadership,” Barnes said. “The last couple years, we haven’t had it the way we want it. There can be a lot of positives that can come out of something like this. The fact of the matter is we will find out.
“Who is going to be the people who can step up and do it? But mean it when they say it and the only way you can say it is if you are willing to go out and guys know you have earned a right to have that voice. If you are going to say it, you have to back it up.”
Life doesn’t get any easier for the Vols any time soon. They’re back in action on Tuesday night against a tough Vanderbilt team for a 9 p.m. ET tip in Nashville. They then host LSU and Florida before traveling to Texas.
”We are a pretty good team when we get our backs against the wall,” Barnes said. “I think we are going to be better a month from now. We are still in good shape with where we are.”