KNOXVILLE – Rick Barnes opened his tenure as Tennessee’s men’s basketball coach with a victory.
The task turned out to be much tougher than the Volunteers probably expected against UNC Asheville.
Kevin Punter scored his 30th and 31st points on a pair of free throws with 7.4 seconds left as the Vols finally put away the pesky Bulldogs, who led inside the final three minutes, for an 82-78 win Friday night at Thompson-Boling Arena in Barnes’ debut as the program’s third coach in as many season openers.
“I’ve seen on television (Division II) teams can beat D-I schools,” Vols senior Armani Moore said after finishing with 12 points, eight rebounds and six assists. “Basketball is a game of runs. At any given time, somebody can come in and swoop you off your feet. I feel like as a competitor, you’ve got to be ready for whoever. You’ve just got to go out and give your all in between the lines.”
The Bulldogs, picked to finish seventh in the Big South Conference, threatened to sweept through Knoxville and steal a victory. Tennessee turned a 34-33 halftime lead into a 10-point advantage seven minutes into the second half, but Asheville went on an 8-1 spurt, and the teams went back and forth over the final eight minutes.
Will Weeks led Asheville with 25 points, and his free throw with 2:06 remaining tied the game at 72.
Punter then hit two free throws and scored in transition after Robert Hubbs, who scored a career-high 18 points, blocked Weeks in the post. Jabari McGhee then knocked down two free throws to extend the Vols’ lead to 78-72 with less than a minute left.
The game still wasn’t iced until Punter’s final free throws.
“I felt the last couple of minutes was the first time we really got competitive on the defensive end, and that’s what we’ve talked about since the other day,” Barnes said. “We’re just too tentative on the defensive end. When the game was on the line and could go either way, we made some plays. We had a little bit more pop to it.”
Prior to the crunch-time desperation, Tennessee’s defense was porous. Asheville scored 40 points in the paint and turned 14 offensive rebounds into 17 second-chance points.
“When it comes to defense, we’ve got to take pride in it, being defensive stoppers as a team collectively,” Moore said. “As far as the glass goes and rebounding the ball, I think we’ve got to take pride in that, too, because obviously we are smaller than most guys we are going to play. We don’t have much size in the post, so that’s got to be really one of the key things that we do is rebound the ball.”
The Bulldogs consistently and easily drove into the paint and to the rim. Barnes mixed in zone defense in the second half, but it didn’t make much of a difference.
“We don’t have that attitude yet,” Barnes said. “We don’t have an attitude where we want to be known as a team that’s going to be scrappy and break balls loose. The pride you need, we don’t have that on the defensive end yet, and it’s got to be everybody. It’s not just one guy or two guys. It’s got to be everybody. We haven’t gotten that yet.”
After a 2-of-10 start from 3-point range and some lengthy scoring droughts in the first half, Tennessee did a better job of setting up good shots. The Vols scored 42 points in the paint and shot 22 of their 26 free throws in the second half. Tennessee shot nearly 53 percent for the game.
After his key block, Hubbs landed awkwardly and stayed down for a few minutes before he was carried off the floor by Tennessee’s trainer and strength coach, but it turned out he was just cramping.
Punter easily bested his career high of 18 points, which he reached twice last season, and Tennessee got good production from McGhee (nine points, six rebounds) off the bench.
“This is the first game of the season, and we were already tested,” Punter said. “Something like this, we can look back and say we’ve got to be better. This is why. This is a great test for us. Credit those guys for coming in here and executing.
“It just shows what areas where we’ve got to get better.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.