Before Rick Barnes was abruptly fired for not winning enough in the NCAA Tournament, he attended Texas for 17 years of his career, so there were a lot of emotions around Tennessee’s Saturday night game against them.
Barnes has three more NCAA Tournament victories than Texas since his firing, and the Vols pulled off a narrow victory to knock out the Longhorns this year.
The majority of the points were scored in the paint, and the game was defensively oriented. This kind of game is ideal for Tennessee. Their lineup is designed to play a hard, physical, defensive style that necessitates scoring baskets in the paint.
Throughout the whole game, even when nothing was falling, Tennessee persisted in forcing shots from beyond the arc and beyond the paint. One thing to remember is that they made the decisions when it mattered, even though it wasn’t pretty. In the closing moments of the game, Texas’s free-throw shooter, who had a percentage of 62.6%, made two of his three attempts.
In the last six minutes of play, Dalton Knecht and Josiah-Jordan James each make two three-pointers in a minute, helping the Vols shoot just 1-for-21 from three. In the second half, Texas goes on a nine-point run to cut the deficit from twelve points to two points, while Tennessee keeps making crucial baskets to maintain their lead.
Less than two minutes remain in the game, and Tennessee misses just one Jonas Aidoo free throw while leading by two points. It was made when it mattered every other time. In the last five minutes of the game, the Vols made the shots necessary to stave off the Longhorns despite having a poor shooting night.
Though the Vols play through and make shots when it counts, perhaps Tennessee won’t have another shooting night as terrible as it did on Saturday. As Tennessee enters the second weekend of the tournament, that will be crucial.
The outstanding defence of Tennessee offers additional insight. Without Zakai Zeigler guarding the perimeter and Jonas Aidoo and Tobe Awaka stopping the paint game, Tennessee cannot win this game. The Vols made it very impossible for Texas to do anything they wanted offensively, no matter where they were on the court or what they wanted to do.
