THE DAY AFTER: TEXAS

Tennessee Basketball was faced with a gut-check scenario in Austin, and they delivered with a win, led by some unlikely stars…

It’s been over 4 days since the Basketball Vols were completely exposed by Florida down in Gainesville.  Worst loss by a #1 nationally ranked team in nearly 60 years...worst loss by a Rick Barnes team in his tenure at Tennessee...worst shooting performance by a D-1 team in this century...yup, the negative superlatives were abundant for that game, and it underscored what we knew already: first, that Tennessee was not going to have an undefeated season, and that’s because the SEC, from top to bottom is historically strong; maybe the best conference in College Basketball history.  All of that said, not only losing their first game, but losing it by 30...THIRTY, was alarming, and it left all Vol fans wondering...is this team really a legitimate title contender?

The good news is that, unlike football, when you take a bad loss like Tennessee had, you’re able to wash it out of your hair and get ready to right the ship within a matter of a few days.  Tennessee had that chance, and it came in the form of the Texas Longhorns on Saturday evening in Austin.  The Texas fanbase had been a little pre-occupied with a pretty important football game on Friday night, so this basketball game was playing second fiddle for most Longhorn fans this weekend...but not Rodney Terry.  His crew knew the gravity of the situation.  Already 0-2 in conference play, and coming off the heels of a close loss to #2 Auburn, Texas needed this win to avoid an 0-3 start, a start that could spell doom for any team in this fully-stocked, ultra-competitive SEC.

But Tennessee needed to win too.  Mentally, a 2-1 conference record is a lot better than 1-2.  But besides that, the Vols needed to prove to themselves that the mess they made in Florida was an outlier, and not the start of an unfortunate pattern.  When I spoke with Vols Assistant Gregg Polinsky during his weekly Thursday segment on Under Review (weekdays at 10:00 AM on Fanrun Radio), we talked about the psyche of the team after Florida, and what their mindset would be heading into Austin. What GP said gave me optimism, saying that “our Seniors were...let’s just say very talkative in the locker room after the Florida game...we didn’t have to say much as coaches after the game, I’ll tell you that.”  The message was clear; we’d see a team with a different level of intensity and resolve on Saturday.  And we did.  Thing is, Texas came in with a high level of intensity too.

So the game was pretty much like the previous three UT-Texas matchups before it.  Physical, grinding, tough basketball.  Tempo would be sporadic, big runs by either team would be pretty non-existent.  So not just tough basketball...pretty ugly basketball.  The halftime score was 33-31 Tennessee, and while the shooting certainly surpassed the atrocity in Gainesville on Tuesday, it was still pretty uneven.  Meanwhile, Texas super-freshman Tre Johnson was lighting the Vols up, totally outplaying Tennessee’s #1 option Chaz Lanier.  In the second half, Texas got out in front of the Vols by 5, Johnson was cookin’ and for a moment, felt like the Vols were in trouble. 

Photo By Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee Athletics

Then Darlinstone Dubar happened.

The guy we’ve all been wondering about this season...”when is Dubar going to get more minutes?”  “This guy was supposed to be a 3 point threat...he stinks!”  Well, Saturday night in Austin, we saw the emergence of ‘The Righteous D-Stone”!  In 17 minutes Dubar scored 12 points, had 6 rebounds, and shot 4-6 from the field, 3-5 from 3.  His three pointers all came at critical times in this game, and his only two was a follow-up dunk off of a Jordan Gainey miss.  A few of D-Stone’s shots, that follow-dunk and a contested 3, arguably swung this game.  His lack of minutes have been likely attributable to being slow in getting into Barnes on-court flow (in other words, he needs to play better defense!), but he showed an offensive tool kit last night that this team needs desperately, so seeing Dubar going to 15-17 minutes a night could/should be the new normal in this rotation.

A D-Stone 3 put the Vols up by one at the 4:00ish minute mark, and then a Felix Okpara offensive rebound and follow-up dunk, followed by a baseline 3 from Jordan Gainey put Tennessee up 6, and they never looked back from there.  Speaking of Okpara, if Dubar was reason #1 Tennessee won this game, you could argue Felix was reason #1a.  His line won’t pop off the page (7 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocks), but his presence as a rim protector on the defensive side of the ball was outstanding last night...for the second game in a row, as he was also the lone bright spot in the Florida loss from my perspective.  And, his minutes have been up in the past two games...in the 30 minute range, which is positively necessary right now, what with Cade Phillips battling his shoulder injury.  If we can get this type of game Felix that has been delivering in the past week on a consistent basis, it raises the Vols ceiling in SEC play.

Beyond those two, Zakai Ziegler was back to being the ZZ we all know and love, with a 37 minute, 16 point, 8 assist bounce-back effort.  He also had some incredibly tough and key buckets in the second half, and hit free throws when it mattered most.  Jordan Gainey’s shooting woes continue (10-39 in his last four games), but he still finished with 12 points, including that dagger 3 late in the game.  Gainey’s biggest contribution though was the defensive job he did on Tre Johnson in the games last 5 minutes, where he held Johnson to just one basket after shredding the Vols earlier.  Those intangibles are what make JG a different and more important player on this team versus last season’s version.  And honestly, let’s give Rick Barnes a tip of the hat for his decision to keep Dubar and Gainey in there in crunch time over Igor Milicic and Jahmai Mashack; you can argue it was the rotation choice that won this game for Tennessee.  Now, as for Lanier’s shooting (6-27 from the field in his last two games), I want to write that off to a shooter hitting a rough spot, and there will be better days/nights ahead...hey, we can hope right?!?

Photo By Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee Athletics

In the end, the Vols course-correct nicely against a solid Texas team on the road, and along the way are discovering some new contributors that in their own way will be vital to Tennessee’s ability to compete and succeed in this ridiculously good SEC.  Georgia comes to Knoxville on Wednesday with a potential NBA lottery pick in Asa Newell, and a team that could very well be nationally ranked after knocking off two ranked teams this past week.  Such is life in this season’s SEC; road wins are going to be tough to come by, so home wins are more critical than ever...let’s see if the Vols are ready to build off of their gutsy win in Austin and defend home court.