Tennessee's Grant Williams shoots over Georgia's Derek Ogbeide during Saturday's game in Knoxville. Williams, a freshman forward, registered his second 30-point game this season, but the Vols lost 76-75.KNOXVILLE - With his 30-point performance against Georgia on Saturday, Tennessee's Grant Williams became the program's first freshman with multiple 30-point games since Allan Houston 27 years ago.
Yet all Williams wanted to talk about after the Volunteers' 76-75 loss was what he didn't do or what he did wrong.
It didn't matter to the forward, who was 10-of-16 from the field and 10-of-14 from the free-throw line, that he accounted for close to half of his team's points. Williams was more focused on his three turnovers and four missed free throws, a few defensive breakdowns against Georgia's J.J. Frazier and the leadership he believes he should have provided.
"I'm really critical of myself," Williams said. "When it comes to accolades, I don't really care about how much I score. I just want to win the game, and in order for us to be successful, we have to win. It doesn't matter to me how much I score as long as we keep on going and win these next few games. We've got Kentucky next, and we've got to get them again."
The Vols are a much different team when Williams isn't on the floor, and they'll certainly regret dropping a game in which he was dominant at times.
The 6-foot-5 North Carolina native scored 12 points in the first half and poured in another dozen in the first six minutes of the second half as Tennessee surged to a double-digit lead. Then Frazier put the Bulldogs on his back with 20 points, five assists and countless key plays to fuel the comeback win.
Williams believed he could have done the same for the Vols down the stretch.
"(Frazier) really was vocal," he said. "He let the guys know they weren't going to lose this game, and I should have done a better job with our team of that, because I think I went away from myself and went away from the team. I was hiding, and I shouldn't have done that. I really take this loss on me because I should have led these guys a lot better and helped them.
"There were times when we weren't guarding. There were times where I was just standing and not moving in the offense. (Robert) Hubbs was trying to take some shots. His shot wasn't falling tonight, but you can't (blame) that, because everybody has their off nights. There's nothing you can say about that. I have nothing else to say, really, about that, because it's on me."
Williams said he stopped demanding the ball and "took a break" offensively, and defensively he felt he allowed Frazier to score against him on back-to-back drives when the Vols were threatening to run away with the game early in the second half.
Yet while Williams was matching his career high set against Lipscomb in December, his teammates shot a combined 16-of-46 (34.7 percent) from the field. Hubbs, Tennessee's leading scorer this season, had 10 points, but he was 3-of-13 shooting. Nobody else on the roster had more than seven points.
"Grant needed more help on the offensive end," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. "He didn't get very much help there. He's beating himself up pretty good about missing a free throw there at the end, but that's not why we lost the game. We lost the game because Georgia shot almost 52 percent. You're not going to win a lot of games when teams are that efficient."
The Vols certainly hope they don't spoil any more big performances Williams may have the rest of his first season.
"He was great," Vols sophomore forward Kyle Alexander said. "I don't think they had an answer for him down there. There were a couple possessions where maybe we should have gotten him the ball a little earlier. He's fighting for position. He's doing so well, and we don't give him the ball. That's something that we've got to work on.
"That's a freshman putting up 30 twice."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.