Tennessee freshman forward DeWayne Brown II was supposed to be a reserve piece on a Volunteers front line this season containing Jaylen Carey, J.P. Estrella, Felix Okpara and Cade Phillips.
That Brown has averaged 10.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 22 minutes the past two games is being viewed as both a positive and a negative for the Vols.
“We haven’t been as consistent there, and we thought that could be a strength for us,” Tennessee 11th-year coach Rick Barnes said Monday during a news conference. “Cade going down (with season-ending shoulder surgery) hurts a little bit, but it shouldn’t hurt at all with what we have. I love Felix to death, but he can’t get one rebound a game. He can’t. That’s his job to go out there and do that.
“We need J.P. to give us a real force physically, and we need Jaylen for the same thing. We need Jaylen to be a better defender. You look at our front-line guys, and arguably the most consistent one has been DeWayne Brown, and that’s a problem.”
Saturday’s showdown at Florida contained the nation’s top two offensive rebounding teams, but the Gators humbled the Vols 91-67, displaying a sizable disparity — at least on that day — between the inside components of the two teams. Tennessee turned the ball over 18 times in Gainesville and got outrebounded 41-30.
READ MORE: Vols routed by Gators, ranked streak now in jeopardy
The film review of that debacle has come and gone as the Vols now turn their attention to Tuesday’s game (7 p.m. on the SEC Network) against Texas A&M inside the Food City Center. Tennessee is 11-5 overall, 1-2 in Southeastern Conference play and remains ranked for a 90th consecutive week, dropping from No. 21 to No. 24 in the latest Associated Press poll.
“We’ve just got to take it as a learning experience and get ready to grow from it,” Brown said Monday. “It’s a quick turnaround, so we’ve got to get ready and move on to the next game. The message is that we can play way better than we have sometimes and that there is a lot of room for improvement but that we have to do it ourselves every day in practice.
“I think everybody is getting the message. It’s just coming to the fact of when are we going to actually do it and take action.”
Brown, the 6-foot-8,251-pounder from the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, has essentially been matched the past two games only by Carey, the junior transfer from Vanderbilt who has averaged 11.0 points and 3.5 rebounds in 23 minutes. Brown has seen the court more often than Estrella and Okpara, who are averaging 5.5 and 3.5 points, respectively, in the last two games.
“It’s just coming into work every day and listening to what the coaches are telling me,” Brown said when asked about his increased playing time. “It’s not listening to anything outside of what the coaches are telling me.”
The Aggies of first-year coach Bucky McMillan are 13-3 overall and 3-0 in SEC play, but have yet to crack the rankings. Their biggest win to date was last Tuesday night’s 90-88 triumph at Auburn, when they used a staggering 35-8 run in seven minutes to turn a 61-45 deficit into an 80-69 lead before holding on.
McMillan spent the past five seasons at Samford, where his press-heavy teams compiled a 151-99 record and won two Southern Conference regular-season titles.
“They’ll jump up and press you, even on a missed shot,” Barnes said. “It’s exactly what Bucky believes in, and he’s got a group of guys who are buying in and doing that.”
Of course, Tuesday will be more about focusing on the within for Tennessee, especially after Saturday’s slaughter.
“Endurance is the name of the game,” Barnes said. “It’s wanting to be where you want to be at the end of the year. We’re trying to find out dependability and who we can count on every single day. We’ve been too inconsistent, and we’ve put way too much on (senior point guard) Ja’Kobi (Gillespie). Other teams are making him work for every step he takes on the court.
“We need more consistency from our front line as much as anything, and we also need our other guards to handle the ball more than they’re used to and make the right decisions.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.