This time of year reigns supreme with the regular season foregone.
Head coach Barnes used the phrase nine times alone after Saturday’s 86-82 loss to Vanderbilt. With postseason play ahead — word remains consistent around Tennessee basketball: the Vols do not feel like they’ve reached their full potential yet.
Even with 31 regular-season games complete and 21 wins to show for it, the 10 losses suggest there is far more room to improve — but is there still time to?
Tennessee thinks so.
“I feel like we’re in a solid spot right now,” forward J.P. Estrella said. “I’m glad that we haven’t peaked yet. I feel like, because at the end of the season, like right now, is the time that we want to peak.”
The dilemma comes with peaking and reaching potential. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive, but neither is something Tennessee has done with the postseason ahead.
Is it concerning?
“Oh, yeah,” Barnes said.
On one hand, showing film where a peak is in sight gives something to build upon. On the other hand, a team that peaks too early is one that often finds the downhill slope faster.
“I’m glad we haven’t peaked because I don’t think we peaked by any stretch of the imagination,” Barnes said.
“I’ve seen teams this time of year be struggling and all at once they catch that magic in a bottle and they roll with it. I’ve seen teams that you thought couldn’t be beat (get beat). So I don’t know. I just think God’s the architect of everything and you got to do your work, get your team ready, but who knows how it’s going to play out.”
Tennessee’s performance against Vanderbilt is all indicative of the ways it has lost all season: turnovers, failed second-chance opportunities and slow starts.
The Vols gave the ball away 11 times, cashed in nine second-chance points on 18 offensive rebounds and trailed 11-2 at the first media timeout.
“The way the game started, I don’t understand it this time of year,” Barnes said. “Because we had enough of them where we know that we got to be on edge. You can’t be relaxed. You got to realize that everybody who plays just as good, and better, if you’re not ready to play.”
The battle remained uphill the remainder of the way. Tennessee kept cutting the deficit to single digits over the final 10 minutes, then Vanderbilt had a response. The Vols came as close as four points in the closing minute, but a Ja’Kobi Gillespie missed 3-pointer with a chance to cut it to one shunned a comeback attempt.
“We know what we should be doing. I mean, we established that the other night and we thought we finally had gotten the balance that we wanted, but evidently we didn’t,” Barnes said. “And just the turnovers, the way you start the game, throwing it out of bounds, getting picked, all those plays — you can’t you can’t do that this time of year.”
The Vols finished the season with five Quad 1 wins, compared to nine losses. They’re 16-1 against all other opponents — the lone loss coming by two points to Syracuse in Tennessee’s first true road game of the season.
A bumpy final two weeks moved Tennessee from winning eight of nine games to losing three of the last four. The only win in that span came over SEC-worst South Carolina.
Offensive woes have limited the Vols in their most recent losses. Tennessee has shot a combined 41% from the field (88-for-211) and 25.8% from the perimeter (17-for-66) over the last three losses — one coming without Nate Ament, and another with 11 minutes of him.
“There’s never an excuse this time of year,” Barnes said.
Good guard play is a must. The Vols have not received that, as Gillespie has been at the forefront of struggles. He posted just three points in the first half Saturday, and missed a crucial 3-point shot in the closing minute that would’ve cut the deficit to a game-low one point.
Gillespie is just 7-for-37 (18.9%) from beyond the arc in his last four games. He’s shot above 40% from the floor just twice since the calendar turned to February — 10 games ago.
“By now, we should really, truly have a real identity of who we are,” Barnes said.
And that identity is still to be determined.
The Vols have the recipe for success: elite offensive rebounding, a top-15 defensive rating and multiple offensive threats. But they have the fatal flaws of a first-round exit: turnovers, failed second-chance opportunties and an inability to make shots inside the restricted area.
For now, they’ll await SEC Tournament seeding, all the while trying to find the keys to a March Madness run.
“You need to be peaking right now,” Barnes said. “You do.”
And for the players, they see the same timeline.
“I feel like we’re going to bounce back from this game,” Estrella said. “We know we will. And when it comes SEC Tournament time, I feel like that’s when the peak’s going to start happening.
