Rick Barnes reveals why Tennessee chose not to foul on final possession vs. Alabama

Saturday’s Tennessee Volunteers win over the Alabama Crimson Tide is going to be remembered for the buzzer-beater that Jahmai Mashack hit to win the game. However, head coach Rick Barnes knows that just as important was his team’s final defensive stand.

After the game, Barnes explained what went into that final defensive possession and just why the Volunteers chose not to foul.

“We weren’t going to foul,” Rick Barnes said. “We felt we have confidence and it’s really, I mean, a lot of things go through your mind. There’s a lot that goes through your mind. Do we want to foul? We don’t want them to have a walk-off win like we had. You don’t want that. But, again, you got to give our guys credit, stayed with it.”

On Tennessee’s final defensive possession, the game was tied at 76 points each. So, fouling would be a way to prevent Alabama from making that the final possession of the game, making sure the Volunteers had a chance to respond. However, Rick Barnes chose not to do that and played out the defensive possession instead.

Ultimately, it was a phenomenal defensive effort. Tennessee was able to tie the ball up, without Alabama getting a shot off. The Crimson Tide then got to inbound the ball, but were unable to find anywhere to go with the ball, leading to a five-second violation and a turnover.

“Again, we knew what we didn’t want to do was, we felt they would really try to work hard to get to the rim. We really felt like that, once they got there, that we didn’t want them to kick out for a three. If they’re going to make a three, we’re hoping it was going be off a bounce. And if they make it, they make it. But we just didn’t want to let them,” Barnes said.

“We obviously didn’t want to foul, then the five-second count, we went with the biggest lineup we could put out there and it worked out for us. And then again, I’ll be honest with you, Shack’s [Jahmai Mashack] never been in that position where he was today, but his basketball IQ and the fact we’ve done it enough. And again, my deal was, if he couldn’t get it to ‘Z’ [Zakai Zeigler] to go, but he shot it, and I’m glad he did. I’m glad the referee didn’t hear me call timeout.” 

The rest of the game was history once Mashack brought the ball up the floor, the officials missed Rick Barnes trying to call timeout, and he hit a buzzer-beater to win.

With that, Tennessee is now 11-5 in SEC play and just one game behind Alabama for third in the conference standings. The Volunteers are also on a four-game winning streak with two regular season games remaining.