Rick Barnes identifies where Tennessee has grown most this season

The Tennessee basketball team has won four of its last five games and sits just one game back from the SEC lead, with a few weeks left to play.

Coach Rick Barnes believes his team’s current run of form is a product of his players getting more familiar with each other.

“I think more individually where these guys really understand what each guy is capable of doing,” Barnes said after an 88-53 win over Vanderbilt. “That’s when we’re at our best, when guys do what they are good at and stay away from things that they’re not as good at is probably the biggest growth. And they’re understanding each other in a good way that way.”

Tennessee has the pieces to make a deep run into the NCAA Tournament if it catches the right breaks and executes the way it’s capable of. The team has an elite scorer in Dalton Knecht and is loaded with veterans up and down the lineup.

That should make for a squad that knows how to operate come crunch time. Barnes still wants to see more.

“We’re always talking about trying to get better and we haven’t been as consistent all the time with the fundamentals in terms of our scheme, whether it’s ball screens, rebounding,” Barnes said. “We’ve had our ups and downs there.

“I think, I don’t know how to say it really, other than the fact that I think even as a coaching staff we have been able to tweak some things and do some things that maybe players have shown us where they can be effective.”

He provided an easy example from the win over the Commodores.

“Like tonight, for instance, we put Tobe (Awaka) at the elbow and isolated him there and he made a really good play for us,” Barnes said. “And even honestly learning how to, with a guy like Dalton, how do we connect him with those other guys, which he’s done himself because of those guys, our older guys, want to win. Knowing that we have a guy that other teams like that have to gameplan for, how you can move him and keep him in positions where they can’t sit on just a few things.”

As Tennessee does that, it gets harder and harder to defend. It’s hard enough to shut down Knecht on a normal night. Get him moving around with some of the other offensive pieces and the Volunteers can be downright lethal.

Barnes just doesn’t want his team to forget the basics, either. Knecht in particular in one area.

“Not only you’re trying to do that with different offensive schemes, but then defense,” he said. “I told him, I said, ‘Hey man, right now, this half you better show me you really want to guard. I don’t care if you score a point, you better give us that effort defensively.’ I thought he did, and he’s getting better when we need him to get better.”

Tennessee should get another chance to gel and improve against a Missouri team that is winless in SEC play. The two squads will meet on Tuesday night, with a 7 p.m. ET tipoff on the SEC Network.