Rick Barnes calls Tennessee players fouling Ole Miss on shots 'ridiculous'

Tennessee committed 16 fouls as a team against Ole Miss during the Volunteeres’ 78-76 loss to the Rebels on Wednesday night. Half of those fouls, including five in the second half, came on shooting attempts.

After the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes expressed his dissapointment in his team’s lack of discipline when guarding players in the act of shooting. Even some of the non-shooting fouls were inexcuseable in Barnes’ eyes.

“It’s ridiculous,” Barnes told reporters. “And we talk about having confrontation. We play like we were — that’s soft, honestly. That’s being soft. You’re not really trying to go in and make plays on the ball. And guys slide out of the way. There’s got to be a confrontation there.

“We’ve been a pretty good rim-protecting team this year, but we weren’t tonight. And you can’t give up, I mean, I don’t know how many and-ones. And we foul on a three-point shooter again, give up a four-point play there. We foul 75 feet from the basket, things like that. That’s a recipe for losing. And that’s what we did.” 

Ole Miss didn’t go to the line all that often despite Barnes’ displeasure at his team’s defensive struggles. The Rebels finished 11 of 14 (79%) from the free throw line while Tennessee was a bit more active getting to the charity stripe. The Vols finished 14 of 17 (82%) from the line during the loss.

The most any single Ole Miss player went to the line during the matchup was twice. Malik Dia made 2 of his 4 attempts at the line on the night, which was the most free throws shot by any of the Rebels. However, it was the efforts of Jaemyn Brakefield off the bench who scored 19 points on 8 of 9 shooting during the contest that led Ole Miss over the No. 4 Vols.

“He had his way with us,” Barnes said. “I mean, anybody, we tried different guys on him, but it was whatever he wanted to do. You let a player like that start feeling good, that rim opens up for him, gets bigger, but he really fought hard to get space where he wanted it, which really good players do and that’s what he did.”

Still, the losing effort drops Tennessee to 24-6 on the season, snapping a four-game win streak for the Vols. Tennessee defeated the likes of a then top-10 Texas A&M squad in College Station, as well as a top-10 Alabama team in Knoxville.

Tennessee will look to move past the mid-week loss as the Vols gear up for a regular season finale against South Carolina at home on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m. ET live on the SEC Network.