KNOXVILLE - The sense of accomplishment following a dominant win didn't last long for Lew Evans.
The graduate transfer knows Tennessee's men's basketball team has been there before this season.
It's been nearly a month since the Volunteers followed one win with another, but for the second time in a week the Vols are coming off a strong performance in a victory.
They won impressively at Vanderbilt on Jan. 14, then turned around and blew a 13-point lead in the second half to lose to Ole Miss four days later. Next is a Tuesday night visit from fifth-ranked Kentucky (17-2, 7-0) after the Vols routed Mississippi State on Saturday.
"We can't be satisfied with just this game," Evans said after grabbing a team-high nine rebounds against the Bulldogs. "We have to just keep going on an uptick and keep doing that and getting better every single game with that. It can't just be one game, then take off another game.
"If we want to get to where we want to be, we've just got to keep going forward and get better at those things even more."
Those things are the consistent factors in Tennessee's maddening inconsistency. Turnovers, ball movement, defensive intensity and rebounding typically determine if the Vols win or lose. All were evident in the 54-point second half against Mississippi State.
The Vols (10-9, 3-4) are neither talented nor experienced enough to overcome their deficiencies with mistakes in those areas.
"When we understand what goes into winning and that we've got to be consistent with that, I think that's what plays a role more than anything," forward Admiral Schofield said. "Not our age or how mature we are in basketball. It's just the fact that we've got to understand what goes into winning and what we've got to do to keep getting wins."
In wins, Tennessee is averaging nearly 18 assists and 11 turnovers. In losses, Tennessee is averaging 10.6 assists and 15.6 turnovers.
Tennessee combined for 13 turnovers against Vanderbilt and Mississippi State after combining for 41 in losses to Florida and South Carolina. The Vols had 20 assists against Mississippi State, and they are 10-2 when they have at least 12.
Coach Rick Barnes said the Vols have to "make the passes that we need to make in our offense. We're a much better team when the ball doesn't stick. I don't think we're a very good team late into the shot clock. We don't even want to play late into the shot clock.
"If you knew what I know, and watched what I watched and would show them, we turn down shots. We don't ask anyone to go searching for shots. When you start turning down shots and you get late into the shot clock, who knows what is going to happen. When we catch the ball, we catch-and-see. We look at what we want to get. It's there, and we're not taking advantage of it enough."
Tennessee is making 7.5 3-pointers per game in its wins and less than five in its losses.
"We're an inside-out team, and we have to be consistent with that," Schofield said. "The games we lose, we don't get the ball inside. We don't put the ball inside. Grant (Williams) gets three shots, I get four shots, (Robert) Hubbs maybe only gets seven shots. That's not how it should be.
"It should be inside-out basketball, because once we establish the inside, then we can kick it out to our guards, and they're great shooters on the perimeter."
Barnes has all but given up trying to figure out if his team will stick to its principles going into every game.
"The thing for us as a team as we've talked about is being consistent," Evans said. "We need to be consistent in that way. We can't have lapses where we turn the ball over a lot or we don't rebound. We need to be a team that's all 40 minutes, and that's what we've talked about a lot these last couple of weeks."