Rick Barnes still trying to find consistency from Tennessee roster

One key thing that has hurt the Tennessee Volunteers men’s basketball squad down the stretch in games this season is consistency. And in Saturday’s matchup against the Kentucky Wildcats, that issue reared its head yet again. Tennessee fell on the road 66-54, leaving the team with more questions than answers. And after the game, even head coach Rick Barnes what’s struggling to find answers to the Volunteers’ consistency woes.

“I wish I knew. If I did, we’d fix it. I don’t understand it, to be quite honest with you,” said Barnes. “As much time as we spend with our guys talking about doing your job, playing your role night in and night out, and not letting emotion get the best of us. I thought we played hard in the second half. But when you’re coming back, emotion starts to kick in. You still gotta make smart plays, and we just had too many plays in the second half where they gave us some chances. They did; they opened the door for us, and we pretty much had our chances. But every time we had a chance to come down, (we) missed rimshots.

“But I wish I knew the answer to that; I really do. As much as time as we spend talk about it, I wish we could figure it out.”

The season keeps rolling along for Tennessee. Up next for the Volunteers is a matchup against the team currently in second place in the SEC, Texas A&M. This will be another away game for Tennessee as the Aggies will host them on Tuesday in a 6 p.m. CT matchup from Reed Arena.

Barnes not using injured starters as excuse for Kentucky loss

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes isn’t making any excuses following a 66-54 loss to Kentucky on Saturday. Although the Volunteers were down two starters in Julian Phillips and Josiah-Jordan James, Barnes believes refused to point to that as the reason they lost.

“I told the guys in the room, ‘We’ll get everybody back, but we had enough,’” Barnes said postgame. “‘We brought enough guys here to win this game.’ I believe that was their team, their players, but that’s with everybody doing their job. We’ve got a group of guys that work hard and do it, but it comes back to consistency. We know how people are gonna play us. They didn’t show us anything. They didn’t do one thing that we were caught off guard by.”

Rick Barnes instead pointed to a lack of defense in the first half that got Tennessee into a hole against Kentucky. The Volunteers entered halftime trailing 39-19 after allowing the Wildcats to shoot 12-of-28 (42.9%) from the floor. It also didn’t help that Tennessee couldn’t buy a bucket itself, shooting 7-of-27 (25.9%).

Things improved in the second half, but not quite enough for the Volunteers to earn the win. Tennessee cut the lead down to eight with around seven minutes remaining, but ultimately trailed the entire way as they fell to 20-7 (9-5 SEC).