KNOXVILLE – Eighth-ranked Tennessee has had a recipe for success this basketball season.
Generally, when the Volunteers have won games – which has happened 27 times – they’ve done so by patient, effective field-goal shooting and sharing the basketball. In each of the team’s four losses, those traits haven’t been evident.
Tennessee shot 28 3-pointers in an 84-80 loss to Auburn in the regular-season finale, making only nine. Nearly half of the Vols’ shots were from 3-point range – which according to coach Rick Barnes was not the game plan.
“We talked about it,” Barnes said Monday. “You go back and look at the losses we’ve had, we’ve done that. I can’ tell you why, because we keep talking about we should know who we are and what we are doing. I can’t explain that. I really can’t. We talked about what we needed to do, and we just settled. We shouldn’t do that.”
The Vols have averaged 3.4 more 3-point attempts per game in their four losses than in their wins. While that’s not a big difference, consider that they’ve shot 3-pointers 39 percent of the time in the losses and taken nearly seven fewer free throws per game. The Vols have averaged 7.8 made 3s per game in their wins and losses, so it’s not the shots they’re making that have been the problem. It’s been that they’ve sacrificed potentially better opportunities.