After trailing by double digits for the majority of the second half, Tennessee had finally began to chip away at Texas A&M’s lead.
Robert Hubbs nailed a three to draw the Volunteers within eight with 2:00 to play. On UT’s next possession, it was Josh Richardson who drained one from beyond the arc to trim the deficit again.
A Derek Reese block on a Peyton Allen 3-point attempt on the other end gave the Vols an opportunity to make it a one-possession game with 1:19 left, and Kevin Punter decided to take it.
The junior guard knifed his way to the basket and laid the ball off the glass, but after a few clangs around the rim, the shot went begging.
The missed layup provided the Aggies with the breathing room they needed to hand the Vols a, 67-61, defeat inside Thompson-Boling Arena.
“It just didn’t go in,” Punter said. “You know, Armani missed a few, and I was just looking at how the game was going and we were just missing little chips. I know Josh missed a few layups. It happens. I guess it was just my turn to miss a chippy.”
After shooting just 25 percent from the floor in the first half, but only entering the locker room at halftime trailing by two, the Vols’ offensive struggles persisted to begin the final period.
A pair of missed layups by junior forward Armani Moore set the tone of the second half as the Aggies opened with a 7-0 run in the first 2:49 following the intermission.
“We knew in the second half we had to come out and have more energy,” said Texas A&M forward Jalen Jones, who finished with a game-high 18 points. “Playing at home, they feed off their fans and they like to press and get after it. We knew we just had to take it to a different notch if we wanted to win this game.”
From there, though, the Aggies continued to ratchet up the pressure.
Over the next 5:01, Punter and Richardson were the only UT players to find the bottom of the basket as Texas A&M (13-5, 4-2 SEC) extended its run to 20-5, giving the Aggies their largest lead of the night at 17.
“I think the biggest thing I can say is that we missed those three little chippys right there around the rim,” Tennessee head coach Donnie Tyndall said. “You could see our guys kind of drop their heads and then we didn’t get back in transition and we missed a couple of those. They had back-to-back transition layups when I called the time out. Our team doesn’t usually give up easy transition baskets.
“It just kind of avalanched on us, but we always tell our team, ‘You can’t let your offense dictate your defense.’ I thought we did that the first five or six minutes of the half.”
Coming off of three consecutive victories that followed a horrid offensive showing against Alabama, Tennessee (12-6, 4-2) reverted back to the offensive style that caused a 14-point second half performance versus the Crimson Tide.
Against Texas A&M’s zone defense, the Vols fired up 29 of their 52 shot attempts from beyond the arc, resulting in the Aggies outscoring UT 30-10 in the paint.
“If you go back to the Alabama game, it’s pretty much what we did then,” Tyndall said. “We settled for too many jump shots. Our will and our mentality to drive the ball wasn’t good enough like it has been in most cases the last few games.”
After opening up the conference slate with a 4-1 record, including three road victories, Tyndall stated that his team seemed “complacent” to open up Saturday’s ballgame, but Punter knows exactly what the Vols need to do in order to rebound.
“For us, we just need to punch the clock each and every day,” said Punter, who sank a career-high five 3-pointers en route to a team-high 17 points. “Not that we are complacent, but we need to keep having confidence and keep doing what got us winning.”
The Vols will look to get back on track when they travel to Fayetteville to play the Arkansas Razorbacks in a rematch of Jan. 13’s, 74-69, victory on Tuesday.
