Tennessee Vols still trying 'to get back on track'

Tennessee guard Josh Richardson (1) shoots during their game on Feb. 26, 2015, in Knoxville.
Tennessee guard Josh Richardson (1) shoots during their game on Feb. 26, 2015, in Knoxville.

KNOXVILLE -- Five weeks ago, Tennessee tipped off a Saturday afternoon men's basketball home game against Texas A&M as the second-place team in the Southeastern Conference.

Ten games and eight losses later, the Volunteers are far from the lofty position they then surprisingly occupied.

After losing a fourth home SEC game to Vanderbilt on Thursday, Tennessee took a four-game losing streak with it to Florida for tonight's game against the struggling Gators, and it's fair to wonder if the Vols have not progressed as the season wore on or if this patchwork roster simply ran into a wall or out of gas.

Whatever it is, the overachieving start Tennessee made in SEC play, albeit against the easier portion of a backloaded schedule, seems like a distant memory.

"No one's happy when you lose, so I don't want to stand up here and start politicking about, 'Hey, this team's overachieved,'" first-year coach Donnie Tyndall said following Thursday's loss.

"I think everyone knows where our team was picked and what we've done to this point. We feel like we could've won some of these games, but I'm not going to stand up here and start saying, 'Well, we've done A, B and C,' just because we've lost.

"We want to win every game we play. Everyone knows where they picked us, and we certainly don't plan on finishing where they picked us."

The Vols were picked to finish 13th in the SEC in the preseason, and they enter the final three games of the regular season two games ahead of a 12th-place tie between South Carolina and Auburn.

Florida, meanwhile, was picked to finish second in the league and began the season ranked seventh in the national preseason polls, but the Gators are tied with the Vols and Vanderbilt for eighth in the SEC right now.

Over the past three seasons, Florida (42-10), Kentucky (40-12) and Tennessee (32-20) posted the three best records in the SEC, but the Vols-Gators clash today pits two struggling teams that have been on the wrong end of a handful of close games this season.

Eleven of Florida's 15 losses came by seven points or less. The Gators lost a pair of one-point games to Ole Miss and other one-pointers against Texas A&M and Georgetown. They also lost by two points to Miami and Florida State and by four to Connecticut.

Four of Florida's six SEC wins were by four points or less, too.

Six of Tennessee's nine SEC defeats came by eight points or less, including a 73-65 loss to the Commodores on Thursday night in a game that tipped less than 48 hours before tonight's game.

"It kind of helps to have a quick turnaround to kind of forget this game," Vols forward Derek Reese said Thursday night. "Tomorrow we'll watch the film on the mistakes that we made in this game. After that we'll watch film on Florida and get ready for them."

Josh Richardson, Tennessee's senior leader, expects the Vols to handle the quick turnaround, particularly after they let Vanderbilt shoot 84 percent and hit 9 of 11 3-pointers in the second half Thursday.

"It should be easy," he said after Thursday's loss. "Basketball's a game (where) if you win one game, then you've got to come back in a couple days and play. We lost today, and we play Florida in two days. We've got to get up and be ready.

"I'm just glad we can forget about it," he added. "I know we've got a young group. I just think it's a good opportunity for us to get back on track in two days."

The Vols have been trying to get back on track for a few weeks now, but there have been some growing pains either against teams that simply have more talent or in some tough road environments.

The only outcome during Tennessee's skid that really was unexpected was the home loss to Mississippi State.

"It's our team trying to continue to grow against teams that are good and playing well," Tyndall said Thursday. "Again, other than the LSU first half, I think we've really competed. I thought we competed tonight. We didn't finish the game like I wished we would. ... We've been beat by quality teams.

"I'm not discouraged with my team," he added. "I certainly didn't like the way we defended the second half, but we've had good practices, guys' spirits are up, and nobody's feeling sorry for themselves. We've just got to bounce back on a quick turnaround and be ready to play."

Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.

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