Scoring 90 points in consecutive Southeastern Conference basketball games is not a common occurrence for the Tennessee Volunteers under Rick Barnes.
In fact, it has happened only once, with the 31-6 team of 2018-19 hanging 92 on South Carolina and 93 on Texas A&M in back-to-back outings. Those same two opponents could be the victims this time around as well, with the No. 22 Vols having dispatched the Aggies 90-80 on Tuesday night and residing currently in the Palmetto State for a Saturday afternoon (1 on CBS) showdown against the Gamecocks.
Tennessee had not surpassed 80 points in an SEC game this season until shooting 50.9% from the floor, placing five players in double figures and racking up 22 assists at Texas A&M’s expense.
“We’ve been there before,” Barnes said Friday afternoon on a Zoom call. “We have some young guys, and they’re learning how to settle into their roles that we need them to play. I like to think that we’re confident, and I think it still goes back to when we take shots when we’re open, we play our best basketball.”
Barnes isn’t into making any predictions on team scoring, but he did say that South Carolina plays with a fast pace, so the potential for points is there. Yet South Carolina and Tennessee have both been known for defense first this season, which was reflected by the 66-46 Vols victory inside Thompson-Boling Arena on Jan. 11.
Tennessee will take a 15-6 overall record and a 6-3 league mark into the game, but the Vols are 12-0 in Knoxville and just 3-6 away from it. South Carolina’s 13-8 record is bolstered by a 9-2 mark in Columbia, where the losses were to No. 1 Auburn and Florida.
“You just have to know that every single possession matters and you have to take care of the ball and minimize turnovers,” Vols sophomore guard Justin Powell said. “It’s hard to win on the road, and it’s a hard league and a great league. Nobody is going to be perfect, but you have to be pretty close to perfect.”
When Barnes was asked about the 3-6 record away from home, he had plenty of different ways of experiencing a setback to discuss.
“In the Texas Tech game, we were not very good on offense but had a shot,” Barnes said. “Same with the Texas game. We had a (potential) game-winner at the buzzer. Kentucky – we never had a shot at that one. I didn’t feel like we did either against Villanova after the first two minutes with Kennedy (Chandler) getting those tough fouls. I can’t remember what the LSU game was like there, and Alabama was right after Christmas without John (Fulkerson) and Kennedy.
“Winning a conference road game is really hard to do, and I don’t care if you’re playing the first-place team or the last-place team. We have enough respect for the game to know that the other team wants to win just as badly as we do.”
Odds and ends
Tennessee leads the series with South Carolina 49-28 and has won seven of the past eight meetings. … This is the first Tennessee-South Carolina game on CBS since 1997. … Fulkerson will tie Kentucky’s Darius Miller (2008-12) with 152 career games played, the most in SEC history. … Chandler’s 46 steals this season are the most by a Vol since Josh Richardson’s 67 in 2014-15.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.