Everything Tennessee basketball wants to accomplish this season is still on the table.
The Vols are ranked No. 8 in the country and are still playing for a potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which would be the first in program history. They also are near the top of the SEC standings and have a chance to win head coach Rick Barnes’ second regular season conference championship and SEC tournament championship.
But the Vols are also suffering the same fate as many other top-10 teams in college basketball this season. Tennessee has lost two road games this season as a top-10 team to an unranked opponent. That does not sound like a good statistic for the Vols, but it is not as bad as it sounds.
After Kansas was blown out at unranked Texas Tech, top-10 teams are now 32-35 against unranked teams on the road this season. If the season ended today, that would be the worst winning percentage for top-10 teams in such games in college basketball history by a long shot.
Tennessee’s loss to Texas A&M was a setback for a team with high goals, but it was not a disaster by any means. However, it is something that the Vols need to learn from.
“I thought we lost our poise because when we got down, we felt like we had to get it all back at once, ” Barnes said after the Texas A&M loss. “They made some threes early, and we got away from our defensive game plan and got anxious.”
The key to the Vols’ success on the road has been fast starts. At Kentucky, the Vols jumped out to a 16-5 lead to stun a packed house of over 20,000 people. The Wildcats made some runs here and there but were never able to take the momentum back.
At Texas A&M and earlier in the season at Mississippi State, Tennessee did not dictate the pace of the game and lost control early on. Like most teams when they get down early, Tennessee has not handled that adversity well and has folded under the pressure of the home team’s momentum.
“I think we had an effort, but it wasn’t a smart effort, ” Barnes said on Tuesday, recapping the Texas A&M loss. “I do know we have guys that want to win, but we just got to be better in those situations when things aren’t going our way. We don’t have to get it all back at once. Because it’s basketball, it is a game of runs.”
Winning on the road is important for Tennessee if it wants to keep up with the other top teams in the conference standings. The NCAA and SEC tournament games are at neutral sites, but crowd noise can still be a factor in those games when one team starts to go on a run, especially if Tennessee is playing a lower seed that neutral fans would like to see pull off an upset.
Tennessee has the veteran leadership necessary to combat tough environments and slow starts to games, but it needs to start demonstrating the ability to weather those storms. In a season where top-10 teams have had a historic number of nightmare games on the road, Tennessee will have to figure out how to solve that problem that most other top programs have not solved yet.
Barnes is confident that his players will come together and figure out how to get the most out of his team’s opportunities the rest of this year.
“I think it comes back to us having guys that just want to win, and they have a passion about it,” Barnes said. “Sometimes they can get too emotional about it and get in a hurry and get sped up, but as long as you’re working, trying to get better, you’d like to think in the end it’s all going to work out for you.”
