Vols T logoATLANTA – South Carolina basketball coach Frank Martin looked down at the stat sheet that showed his ground-down Gamecocks losing 59-44 to Tennessee on Friday afternoon, then looked ahead to the Volunteers’ Southeastern Conference tournament semifinal showdown today with No. 1 Florida.
“Heck of a matchup,” Martin said. “Interesting to watch. If Tennessee’s guards can handle Florida’s pressure, their inside play can create a problem for Florida.”
Judging by Friday’s performance against a South Carolina team playing its third game in 44 hours, that could be a big “if” for Tennessee, now 21-11 for the season. The Vols turned it over 12 times in all, but 10 of those came from their guard trio of Antonio Barton (4), Jordan McRae (4) and freshman reserve Darius Thompson (2).
Given that Missouri’s more celebrated guard trio of Jordan Clarkson, Jabari Brown and Earnest Ross coughed it up eight times against the Gators in a 72-49 defeat earlier in the afternoon — Clarkson responsible for six of those — the Vols would seem to need a far better performance out of their backcourt, though their assist-to-turnover ratio was the second best in the league during the regular season.
“When I took over this program, this is what I envisioned defensively,” UT coach Cuonzo Martin said after the Vols held the Gamecocks to 27 percent field-goal shooting, including 25 percent from the 3-point line. “I just thought we did a real good job of playing with energy. The last five games, we’re playing well.”