Tennessee basketball is a team that can build a double-digit lead against top 20 competition by dominating the glass and scoring 17 second chance points in a half. But they are also a team with an offense liable to disappear for extended stretches and is not strong enough on defense to overcome those droughts.
It was all on display Saturday night. The result? Nate Oats storming onto the court in celebration as Alabama turned a 12-point halftime deficit into a 71-69 victory.
“It was great that we got the win,” Oats said postgame. “I’m not sure we necessarily deserved it.”
It’s a familiar situation for Tennessee this season. The Vols have now blown double-digit leads in five of their nine losses. They led by double-digits in the second half in four of those games.
It presents a simple but difficult question for Rick Barnes or any Tennessee player to answer: Why does this keep happening?
“It’s not the blown leads, it’s playing 40 minutes,” Barnes said postgame. “That’s what it is. It’s being able to play for 40 minutes.”
Barnes’ downplaying the blown leads does not feel entirely fair. But there is some validity in his point. Even with fumbling away second half leads, Tennessee is 5-6 in games up for grabs coming out of the final media timeout this season.
It would be easy to say Tennessee just is not clutch and can’t get the job done in winning time. But that is overly simplistic and not actually true.
Why can’t Tennessee put 40 minutes together? They are a young team. Three of the Vols’ top eight players are true freshman. Two more are sophomores playing meaningful minutes for the first time in their career. But March is here and inexperience is no longer a valid excuse.
“I can say some guys are learning to play these tight games, but we played enough of them,” Barnes said. “We played enough of them that we ought to be able to, you got to get onto the next possession regardless of what happened and we haven’t been able to do that with a couple guys.”
Why can’t Tennessee put 40 minutes together? Because they’re a flawed basketball team.
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Tennessee has two players averaging over 10 points per game. And if you told Tennessee’s coaches before the season that would be the case, I don’t think they would truly be shocked.
The Vols never landed an adequate secondary scoring guard that could take pressure off Gillespie and Ament, or give Tennessee a different gear to make them a national contender. Tennessee’s hope that its deep front court could provide enough offense in the aggregate to represent a viable third scoring option has not come to fruition. At least not with any real consistency.
That reveals another serious flaw for Tennessee. They are the nation’s best offensive rebounding team, everything they could have hoped to be and more on the offensive glass. But they are not good enough at converting those offensive rebounds into second chance points to fully maximize that advantage.
Even with its shortcomings, Tennessee’s offense currently has a nearly identical efficiency rating as it did last season. But the Vols lack the same elite defense that they have boasted the last half decade. Tennessee ranks 15th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency. The Vols have overcome shaky offense with stout defense in recent years. But this year’s defense is only good.
Tennessee has provided flashes of stellar play this season. Road wins over Alabama and Vanderbilt bookended a nine-game stretch in SEC play with eight victories. But right when the Vols seemed to be turning the corner, they stumbled in consecutive games as mild favorites.
In that way, Tennessee’s blown leads have been a microcosm of its whole season. Stretches of elite play, but an inability to sustain it.
With one week remaining in the regular season, the Vols project as a five or six-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
This is where it is important to have some perspective. Tennessee could still very well put two solid performances together and return to the Sweet 16. And making the Sweet 16 for a fourth straight time in a frustrating season would be quite the accomplishment. Tennessee could be in Auburn’s shoes, spiraling to the NIT in Steven Pearl’s first season as head coach.
But it is equally likely that Tennessee puts together an inconsistent performance and loses a winnable game in the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament. And if the Vols do advance to the second weekend of the big dance, it’s extremely difficult to see them putting together the complete 40 minutes it would take to upset one of the nation’s stout one seeds.
Tennessee has told us who they are with its inconsistencies throughout the season. We would be wise to listen.
