KNOXVILLE – Although Tennessee came home from Kansas last Saturday with a loss, the Vols’ play didn’t suggest that they are lost.
Their 74-68 basketball setback at the hands of a Jayhawks team with Final Four aspirations might have been their best effort of the season. UT coach Rick Barnes conceded that the Vols played well during a Monday afternoon press conference. Then, within the same sentence, he pored over game plays as if he still was in the video room with his players, tallying the missed opportunities.
“The what-ifs don’t get you anything,” he said.
While discussing the players and reviewing their performances in advance of Tuesday’s home game against Texas A&M, Rick Barnes sounded as if he was checking a competitive compass for UT’s bearings.
“This is the time of year where everybody gets separated,” he said. “If you want to be a team that’s going to be playing later in the year, you better realize it’s about moving forward and getting better and not going backwards.
“That’s when you learn some valuable lessons through losses. I like to win and learn lessons. It really doesn’t feel very good when you know a guy is capable of doing more than he did and you lose.”
At present, the Vols’ veterans are doing a better job at providing a sense of direction.
Redshirt junior forward John Fulkerson, for example, has recorded three double-doubles for points and rebounds in the past five games, averaging 13.2 points and 8.8 rebounds during that span. After scoring a career-high 18 points against Ole Miss last week, he joked about fueling his scoring feat with a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal as a pregame meal.
Well, it’s assumed that he was joking. Fulkerson needed more than a sugar rush to joust with Kansas center Udoka Azubuike and manage 15 points and a career-high 12 rebounds. Barnes said that Fulkerson’s play last Saturday recalled his eight-point effort as a freshman at North Carolina.
“He got hurt after that,” said Barnes, referencing the 2016 game in Chapel Hill, N.C. “and now we hope that’s who he is and he’ll continue to move forward.”
Also Saturday, forward Yves Pons scored a career-high 24 points and blocked three shots. He’s averaging 3.3 blocks during the past seven games.
And senior guard Jordan Bowden bounced back from early foul trouble to score all 19 of his points in the second half. He’s averaging nearly 16 points per game during the past four games.
Barnes’ only significant regret involving these players was Bowden and Fulkerson attempting to connect on a lob with UT trailing by three points late in Saturday’s game. The speculative play resulted in a crucial turnover.
“You’re not going to win a game against a top-3 team in the country in their building thinking you’re going to throw up a play like that when it’s winning time,” Barnes said.
It’s not forward thinking.
Freshman up: Santiago Vescovi didn’t commit a turnover for the first time in his seven games. Barnes indicated that the first-year guard showed a better grasp of UT’s system of play as well.
“The fact that he made some mistakes on the defensive end and he knew it,” Barnes said. “In the past, he didn’t. He knew it Saturday.”
Freshman down: Fellow guard Josiah-Jordan James had arguably his worst game as Vol with zero points and six turnovers.
Barnes stuck to the day’s theme in saying: “At this point, we can’t be going backwards.”
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri who covered University of Tennessee athletics for the Knoxville News Sentinel from 1988-2019. He may be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.