Vols hoping to create some 'March Madness' in SEC tournament

Tennessee forward Armani Moore (4) and guard Detrick Mostella (15) trade high-fives during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Tennessee, Saturday, March 5, 2016, in Knoxville, Tenn. (Adam Lau/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
Tennessee forward Armani Moore (4) and guard Detrick Mostella (15) trade high-fives during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Tennessee, Saturday, March 5, 2016, in Knoxville, Tenn. (Adam Lau/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

KNOXVILLE - Tennessee's basketball Volunteers departed Thompson-Boling Arena early Tuesday afternoon, unsure for how long they would be in Nashville for the Southeastern Conference tournament.

The Vols hope they're in the state capital all week.

It's highly unlikely that happens for this shorthanded team, but stranger things have happened.

"It's a new season," forward Derek Reese said before boarding the team bus. "You notice throughout the season everyone's beating each other, so anything can happen. It's March Madness."

Anything beyond a win tonight against Auburn would qualify as unexpected for these Vols, who departed Tuesday while their leading scorer, Kevin Punter Jr,. was in his native New York City undergoing foot surgery. Confidence is certainly low due to their current four-game losing streak, but they have practically nothing to lose in the tournament.

"We've just got to go out and lay it on the line each and every game," senior forward Armani Moore said. "We can't go out and think about the outcome. If we go in and pretty much play as hard as we can play and do everything right on our end, I think the rest will take care of itself."

First-year coach Rick Barnes was realistic in assessing his team's chances of accomplishing the unthinkable. The Vols would have to win five games in five days to avoid missing a postseason tournament altogether. Tennessee won six conference games all season.

"We do have a new start here now," Barnes said. "It's going to have to be an unbelievable run to make anything happen out of it. You'd have to win the tournament, and you look at what we've done to this point, I don't think you'd think we could do that. But sometimes people help you along the way, and we'd need some help along the way."

Tennessee showed it was capable of beating some better teams with its wins against Kentucky, South Carolina, LSU and Florida earlier this season, but those victories came with Punter.

Without him, the Vols often have looked out of sync and disheartened.

"Once you've got a guy who can score the ball like Kevin, obviously it's easy to see when he's missed," Moore said. "I think the last game we went on a 10-minute drought. That's just bad, but we've got to be better on the offensive end getting better movement, taking better shots and letting the game come to us.

"As far as our team right now, in order for us to develop a spark, I think that's going to have to start on the defensive end."

Both Moore and Reese stressed they can't focus on the possibility that each game now could be their last in a Tennessee uniform and the team can't treat a do-or-die game any differently than any other game.

There was a slight adjustment this week to the structure of practice, though, according to Reese.

"It's more on us," he explained. "It's been more competitive, but it's more us being together as a team. It's five-on-five, but we're doing different drills, and if you lose you've got to run.

"The coaches are not really coaching as much as they used to. (Barnes) wants us to communicate more and build that communication, so that will lead to doing that on the court. We have to figure things out ourselves."

If the Vols were to figure things out, perhaps they could go on a run similar to what Auburn did last year, when the Tigers went from Wednesday night to a Saturday semifinal with three upsets.

After all, it is March.

"I felt like we just had that confidence when we were playing like that," Reese said of Tennessee's big wins this season. "We're an inexperienced team, so we're going to have those games where we're going to play really well and have those games where we play really bad.

"I just feel like (the big-wins team is) the team we can be, and we need to stay like that and have that same focus that we had those games."

Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.

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