After 31 games, coach Rick Barnes isn’t sure if Tennessee basketball has a firm offensive identity.
The No. 25 Vols (21-10, 11-7 SEC), who finished the regular season with a 86-82 loss to No. 22 Vanderbilt (24-7, 11-7) on March 7 at Food City Center, may be running out of time to figure it out.
“I told our guys we didn’t accomplish what we wanted to in the regular season,” Barnes said. “We’ve got a conference tournament left, and then the NCAA Tournament. By now we should really, truly have a real identity of who we are.”
Tennessee will need to establish an identity for the SEC Tournament in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena. The No. 5 seed Vols will play the first-round winner between No. 12 seed Auburn (16-15, 7-11) and No. 13 seed Mississippi State (13-18, 5-13) on March 12 (3 p.m. ET, SEC Network).
If Tennessee wins, it would play No. 4 seed Vanderbilt for a third time on March 13 (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) in the quarterfinals.
Barnes thought the Vols honed their offensive focus on March 3 with the 19-point win at South Carolina. The Vols, missing star freshman Nate Ament, opted to bully the Gamecocks in the paint. The top two scorers − J.P. Estrella and Felix Okpara − combined for 42 points.
In the first half against Vanderbilt, though, Tennessee strayed from its winning formula. Okpara went 1-of-2 for two points, while Estrella didn’t attempt a shot.
It led to a hole that the Vols, despite scoring 60 second-half points, couldn’t dig out of.
Barnes turned his attention to his guards.
“This time of year, you have to have really good guard play, and our guard play wasn’t great today,” he said. “I think we had two shots in the first half. Our post guys need to touch the basketball whether they score it or not.
“I asked (the guards) the question, ‘Why?” Their answer mostly is, “I don’t know.” Some of it is, a lot of guys haven’t played with post players, but by now, there’s really not an excuse. We know what we should be doing. We established that the other night and we thought we’d finally gotten the balance that we wanted, but evidently we didn’t.”
Estrella started in the second half and gave the Vols the offensive lift they needed without Nate Ament, who missed his second game with a high ankle sprain. He scored 20 points in his second straight game on an efficient 9-of-12 shooting.
“I didn’t really think of it that much,” Estrella said about not shooting in the first half. “They did a good job of making sure I didn’t get the ball. In the second half, my guys did a good job of finding me in the sports that I was open in. I feel like I did a good job of finishing it.”
Barnes admitted it was “frustrating” his team didn’t work through the post, especially after the method succeeded in the last game.
The veteran coach is both worried and hopeful that the Vols haven’t reached their ceiling.
“Oh, yeah,” Barnes said about being concerned the Vols haven’t reached their full potential. “But I’m glad we haven’t peaked, because I don’t think we’ve peaked by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been doing this a long time I’ve seen teams struggle, but once they catch that magic in a bottle, they roll with it. I’ve seen teams that thought they couldn’t be beat, they get (upset).
“You’ve got to do your work and get your team ready, but who knows how it’s going to play out.”
At Bridgestone Arena
Nashville
All times Eastern
Wynton Jackson covers high school sports for Knox News. Email: [email protected]
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