As Tuesday’s contest waned on, the roller coaster ride continued to get wilder.
Once leading by as many as 16 points, Tennessee watched as their free throw shooting woes allowed Arkansas to inch back into the game.
Ultimately, though, it was an empty trip at the charity stripe on Arkansas’s end that allowed the Volunteers to escape with a 74-69 victory over the No. 19 Razorbacks inside Thompson-Boling Arena on Tuesday.
“There’s a distinct difference in playing not to lose as opposed to playing to win,” Tennessee head coach Donnie Tyndall said. “I thought for about 35 minutes we played to win, and the last five minutes we played not to lose. You could tell we tightened up a little bit. We missed some free throws, we turned it over and we became a little apprehensive.
“You can blame that on whatever you want, but I really believe it’s because we have a young team that is still trying to figure it out … Thank goodness we made enough plays to make it out of there alive.”
Those final five minutes saw what was once a 14-point UT lead continually shrink, as the Razorbacks outscored the Vols 22-7 over a 4:54 stretch, ending with a contested 3-pointer from Anton Beard to draw the Hogs within one with 15 seconds remaining.
On the ensuing Tennessee possession, it was junior guard Kevin Punter who asked for the opportunity to step up to the free throw line, where the Vols had converted just 10 of their previous 22 attempts.
“Good players want that moment,” said senior guard Josh Richardson, who finished with a game-high 20 points. “Coach Tyndall came to the huddle and asked him if he wanted the free throws and he was like ‘Yeah,’ so I told him ‘Knock ’em down and let’s roll.'”
Punter, who over the past two games had hit just one of his last 15 field goal attempts, did exactly that to push the Vols lead back to three.
But then, with the crowd of 13,366 inside Thompson-Boling Arena on their feet, disaster struck. Tyndall called for his guys to foul the ball handler, but the request came too late, as Beard got in position to draw a foul from beyond the arc.
The mistake, however, wouldn’t cost the Vols as the freshman guard missed all three of his attempts from the line.
“The play at the end, that is on me,” Tyndall said. “I should have had them foul before the half court. We had a foul to give. We figured we had 8 seconds and we would foul at 4. They would take it out and maybe one or two dribbles to get something at the rim or on the rim from the 3-point range. We let them get across half court range before we fouled. So that is on me. I made a mistake there. Fortunately it didn’t cost us the game.”
Junior guard Armani Moore, who corralled the rebound after Beard’s third free throw clanged off the rim, drained a pair of free throws to seal the game with four seconds remaining.
For a majority of the game, though, there wasn’t as much to be anxious about.
After going into halftime with a two-point lead, the Vols outscored Arkansas 21-7 through the first 9:59 of the second half, jumping out to a 16-point lead, which was their biggest lead of the night.
The early second half run was due in large part to Tennessee’s ability to convert off of Arkansas’ mistakes, scoring 27 points on 18 Razorback turnovers.
“They did some of the things we normally do to people and that’s turn them over,” Arkansas head coach Mike Anderson said. “That was a big statistic in the game, they turned us over and turned those turnovers into points.”
Along with Richardson’s 20-point performance, which tied a season-high, sophomore guard Robert Hubbs III and Moore also finished in double figures, scoring 16 and 14, respectively.
The Razorbacks were led by sophomore forward Bobby Portis, who had a double-double, scoring 17 points while gathering 11 rebounds.
The Vols will look carry the momentum of their second victory over a ranked opponent when they travel to Columbia, Missouri to face off against the Missouri Tigers on Saturday at 6 p.m. EST.
