Rick Barnes addresses Tennessee's low assist numbers vs. Arkansas

Offense was hard to come by in Saturday’s SEC matchup between Tennessee and Arkansas. The Razorbacks came away with a low-scoring 58-48 victory over the Volunteers, with both teams shooting under 31% from the field. The two teams had just 12 total assists, with only five of them coming on Tennessee’s end. After the game, Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes addressed the significantly low number of assists between Tennessee and Arkansas.

“There was no flow in the game from our end,” Barnes said when asked what led to the low assist numbers in Tennessee’s loss to Arkansas. “I mean, (JD) Notae is certainly a big part of what they like to do and they were physically going to try to be very aggressive with our guards and we felt that coming in with their size against our size. I thought we did a good job when they started early trying to back us down there, but like I said, I thought we had some chances early to get some momentum and get settled in.

“But when you’re missing shots, it puts that much more pressure on the defensive end. I felt like early we were dribbling too much and east and west, doing nothing north and south. We knew we could come off the ball screen, they had that deep catch, and we were willing to. We wanted guys to take that shot. But when players come off, sometimes it means like, Kennedy (Chandler), Zakai (Zeigler), they feel like they can get to the rim. Their instincts sometimes take over like that.”

Barnes was disappointed in Tennessee’s start against Arkansas

In the game, Tennessee had 15 turnovers compared to 10 for Arkansas. The Vols shot just 16.7% from three-point range, while Arkansas wasn’t much better at 22.7%. Arkansas held a 24-23 lead at halftime, and the Razorbacks extended that with a 34-25 edge in the second half.

While Barnes admitted that the turnovers were disappointing, he also said that Saturday’s game featured two good defensive teams in Tennessee and Arkansas.

“But again, the way we started the game, it was disappointing,” Barnes added. “It was disappointing to me the turnovers we had early in the game. But it was both teams are good defensive teams. I thought our zone was really good, I thought it helped us buy time and put them in long possessions. Allowed us to try to keep some guys out there. I mean again, we were just really scrambling to try to get it down to where we could keep it close to get it to the end and hopefully get back to our man and maybe get some offense going. And then when they spread out, we weren’t able to capitalize going inside.”

The loss dropped Tennessee to 19-7 overall and 10-4 against SEC opponents. Tennessee has four games remaining on the season, with road trips to Missouri and Georgia mixed with home dates against Auburn and Arkansas.