KNOXVILLE — Even sturdy defenses often fall victim to Florida’s versatile ball-screen offense, and Tennessee’s defense has been far from fierce in the past week.
Bruce Pearl and his 14th-ranked Volunteers don’t seem intimidated ahead of today’s crucial 1 p.m. game in Thompson-Boling Arena, but they know a third consecutive poor defensive performance will give them a third consecutive Southeastern Conference loss.
“No excuses,” UT senior point guard Bobby Maze said. “Our defense has to be better. It has to be … or we’re going to keep on losing.”
The Volunteers had held six consecutive opponents below 40 percent shooting from the floor before their game at Georgia last weekend. The Bulldogs shot 56.3 percent in their win over the Vols, and Vanderbilt shot 50.9 percent in its Wednesday win at UT.
“Some teams have taken advantage of our lack of size inside and our lack of depth,” Vols senior wing J.P. Prince sad. “We can’t dish out fouls necessarily, at least how we normally would if we had everybody on the team. Brian (Williams) and Tyler (Smith), that’s 10 fouls right there that we’re missing. It’s been hard. Teams are trying to attack us more inside and challenge our toughness. It’s just something we’ve got to keep working on.
“I actually think rebounding is the key. Our defense has been fairly solid, but those second-chance points have been making the difference.”
The Vols (15-4, 3-2) will have more defensive challenges today. Coach Billy Donovan’s Gators (15-5, 4-2) already were solid on the perimeter, but 6-foot-10 Vernon Macklin’s transfer from Georgetown has firmed up their frontcourt, allowing Alex Tyus to return to his natural power forward position and relegating tough veteran Dan Werner to sixth-man status.
Florida’s big men are surrounded by perimeter snipers. Wing Chandler Parsons has finally emerged as a more consistent performer and clutch shooter, and dynamite backcourt duo Erving Walker and Kenny Boynton have combined for 29 3s in the Gators’ six SEC games.
“Walker and Boynton are really good,” Pearl said. “Walker can shoot it deep — I mean really deep. You’ve got to contest him from wherever he shoots it from. He’s that good. Then obviously when you extend on him, it opens it up for the dribble-drive and opens it up for the post. Their ball-screen offense is as good as anybody in the country. That’s one of the things that Billy does as well as anybody in college basketball, his ball-screen offense.
“And Boynton is just so explosive. If Kentucky wasn’t loaded with all their freshmen, all you’d be hearing about is Kenny Boynton and how good he is for the Gators.”
Pearl and his players adamantly stated all week that winning seven of the past eight games against Florida won’t mean anything today.
“That doesn’t matter,” said UTC senior forward Wayne Chism, who plans to play again today with a sore knee. “I don’t care if we’d beaten them 30 times in a row. They’re always going to be hungry, because they’re tired of losing to you.
“I know Florida’s going to come in here and be ready to play us. If I played for Florida, I’d be tired of hearing about losing to Tennessee. I know they’re tired of it.”
Like Vanderbilt, Florida comes to Knoxville on a nice winning streak.
“It means they have confidence. It means they’re playing really well,” Pearl said. “We’ve got to understand that Florida’s tired of hearing about Tennessee and how we’ve had the advantage on them. Those guys are going to come in here hungry. Vanderbilt came in here hungry and elevated their game. We played pretty well against Vanderbilt, but they played very well.
“Vanderbilt hadn’t come in here and won in five years. Florida will bring that same kind of energy, the same kind of effort. We’ll be expecting that.”
And they’ll have to match that, UT sophomore guard Scotty Hopson added.
“We want to step back up in the ranks and be No. 1 in the East,” Hopson said. “We’ve got a long way to go to get back there now, but we’ve go to defend our home. We’ve got to come out and get this victory. Got to.”
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