Tennessee’s Jarnell Stokes warms up before an NCAA college basketball gameKNOXVILLE – Tennessee forward Jarnell Stokes is trying to find his groove.
He’ll now do it against a team trying to do the same.
After his free-throw shooting woes earned Stokes a spot on the bench down the stretch of the Volunteers’ loss Saturday at Alabama, the search for a balance between aggressiveness and efficiency continues at Kentucky, where the defending national champions are coming off a rare home loss.
“I feel like these last two games I’ve made steps in being aggressive and I feel like I made good moves and I played hard, but I just didn’t finish,” Stokes said Monday before practice. “It’s me not finishing, not making free throws and just missing easy point-blank layups. I’m not too stressed out about the way I’ve been playing lately.”
Any home loss is stressful for Kentucky’s faithful fan base, and the 40-point performance by Texas A&M’s Elston Turner prolonged the Wildcats’ search for continuity with nearly an entirely different roster than the one that lost only twice on the way to the program’s seventh national title last season.