College basketball coaches often implore their teams to compete for the full 40 minutes.
Tennessee's Rick Barnes just doesn't want Santiago Vescovi playing 39 of them.
The senior guard from Uruguay has been beyond busy since sophomore point guard Zakai Zeigler's season-ending ACL injury on Feb. 28 against Arkansas, tallying 39 minutes during the 75-57 downing of the Razorbacks and again in Saturday afternoon's 79-70 loss at Auburn. Vescovi had not logged 39 minutes all season until the past two games.
"We're definitely missing 'Z' out there, and we all feel it," Vescovi told reporters earlier this week. "It's just a different role I have to play this time. It's more of a point guard and bringing the ball up the court every time. It just feels different, to be honest.
"We've got to adapt to it and find other ways to win."
Tennessee concluded a 22-9 regular season that contained an 11-7 Southeastern Conference mark with Saturday's setback against the Tigers. The No. 17 Volunteers were just a game back of Alabama for the league lead entering February but stumbled to a 4-6 record in their final 10 games, which has yielded a fifth seed at this week's SEC tournament in Nashville's Bridgestone Arena.
The Vols open tourney play Thursday afternoon (approximately 3:30 on SEC Network) against 13th-seeded Ole Miss — a 67-61 winner against 12th-seeded South Carolina in Wednesday's opener in Nashville — and a primary goal for Barnes is to lessen the load on Vescovi.
"We put a lot on Santi," Barnes said of the regular-season finale. "For him to play 39 minutes and normally guarding the other team's best perimeter player and trying to get it going — we need to help him. There is no doubt he needs to get some help there."
Vescovi scored a combined 35 points against Arkansas and Auburn, shooting 8-of-16 from 3-point range, but he was held scoreless in the final six minutes Saturday. A notable concern moving forward is whether the additional load offensively will affect Vescovi on the defensive end.
Auburn scored 49 second-half points Saturday, the most the Vols have allowed in any half this season.
"From a defensive standpoint, not one guy played well," Barnes said.
Vescovi insisted this week that he hasn't felt tired while on the court for any of his 78 minutes the past two games, but he admitted he has felt it afterward. The 6-foot-3, 192-pounder leads the Vols in minutes (32.8) and points (12.7) per game while ranking second to Zeigler in assists (84) and steals (53).
Yet there is no particular stat Barnes considers when it comes to Vescovi's greatest trait.
"It's his conditioning that's really amazing," Barnes said. "During games, you'll hear players say to him, 'Will you stop moving?' You literally hear people ask him to stop for a little bit. He would say back to them, 'Yeah, if you let me shoot it.' He has to work hard to get his shots, but he is good at moving, and he creates so many looks for guys.
"We just had too much on him Saturday. He doesn't ever want to come out of the game, but we've got to get him out of the game. Him going 39 minutes on both ends is too much."
Memory lane
Tennessee's run to last season's SEC tournament title, the program's first since 1979, brought back some pleasant memories this week and perhaps will provide some motivation to do it again.
"Our plan is to go to Nashville and hopefully stay all four days," Barnes said. "Every game has to be a championship game. It has to be, because a week from now, it is for real."
Said Vescovi: "It was a great run last year. We were together. It was a team that was having fun."
Odds and ends
Vescovi said he is "keeping every door open" when asked whether he will use an extra year of eligibility to return next season. ... Barnes said he and his staff have gone over video of every game this season since Saturday. ... Tennessee has an all-time record of 73-56 at the SEC tournament, but the Vols are just 38-41 since the event's reinstatement in 1979.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.
Updated with more information at 9:10 p.m. on March 8, 2023.