A dreadful stretch of basketball paved the way for Tennessee's most dubious defeat of the season.
The Volunteers' late-season tailspin now includes a miserable loss to the Southeastern Conference's last-place team.
LSU punished Tennessee for missing 12 straight shots and going almost 10 minutes between field goals by going on a 20-4 run as the Tigers snapped a program-record 15-game losing streak with a 92-82 win Wednesday night in Baton Rouge, La.
"This time of year, we keep talking about effort and intensity," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes told the Vol Network after the game. "We're not tired. We've cut our practices back. We're acting like a team, to me, that's sort of kind of afraid to win, in the fact of knowing how hard you've got to play every single possession."
Tennessee (15-15, 7-10) lost for the fifth time in six games and again looked like a team out of gas while allowing LSU (10-19, 2-15) to record a season high in points and its first win since Jan. 4 at Missouri.
"It's frustrating when a team shoots 50 percent in both halves," Tennessee freshman Grant Williams told the Vol Network after finishing with 16 points and 14 rebounds. "We just didn't guard them tonight. They killed us. They're a talented offensive team, and that's the one thing we knew we had to do, but we didn't do it."
The Vols had plenty of energy in the first half, when they scored 46 points and shot 57 percent, but the team that reset its lowest scoring output of the season three times in the past four games showed up in the second half.
Tennessee went nine minutes and 41 seconds between a Shembari Phillips 3 that gave it a 51-49 lead and the sophomore's layup that cut the deficit to a dozen.
After LSU turned a two-point lag into a 14-point lead, the Vols never mounted a serious charge at a comeback.
"Our defense let us down both halves," Williams said, "because no matter what, on offense we created their transition points and also on defense we just didn't guard them whatsoever. They just blew by us. They shot over us. We had our hands on their really good shooters. That was the most frustrating part about it."
The span of 12 straight misses began when Robert Hubbs III came up empty on a trio of good looks. Tennessee had three turnovers during the stretch. On one possession, Phillips missed a wide-open 3 and Schofield missed from point-blank range after pulling down the rebound.
In the second half, Tennessee shot 27 percent (9-of-33) and recorded only two assists. The Vols had 10 assists before halftime.
"Robert Hubbs had a tough night," Barnes said. "He was 4-of-13, and when he missed some shots, I thought a couple guys just put their heads down and just tried to go make something as opposed to us staying together."
LSU outscored Tennessee 36-18 in the paint and generated 17 points off 14 Tennessee turnovers.
The Vols shut down Antonio Blakeney as the explosive guard, averaging 26 points in the past six games, scored just six points on 2-of-12 shooting. But Brandon Sampson poured in 24 points on 11-of-12 shooting from the free-throw line, and Jalyn Patterson blew away his previous season high of 12 points by scoring 22.
The Tigers shot 50 percent and made more free throws (27) than Tennessee attempted (26).
"It was just a total lack of a defensive effort that we need," Barnes said. "That's all we really talked about. What we asked the guys to do was compete at the highest level that we could compete on the defensive end, and we didn't do that. We didn't turn them over. We didn't finish plays."
Jordan Bowden returned from a three-game absence due to illness to provide a nice spark with eight first-half points, while fellow freshman Jordan Bone had nine points and two assists in the first half. Bone, Bowden and Hubbs were scoreless in the second half, though, and Admiral Schofield picked up two early fouls and was never a factor.
Phillips matched Williams with 16 points and Lamonte Turner scored 14 points, albeit in a brutal loss for Tennessee.
"This is the time of year when toughness shows up," Barnes said, "and we haven't shown that."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.