In 70-52 win at Oklahoma, Tennessee holds another opponent to season low in points

Tennessee’s defense didn’t need to prove itself Saturday afternoon. The Vols went to Oklahoma already having the nation’s best defense, with a habit of holding opponents to their lowest of lows.

The Vols were already ranked No. 1 in KenPom.com‘s adjusted defensive efficiency, too, and had been back there a week, ever since the 64-44 win over Florida last Saturday at Food City Center. 

But it happened again at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Tennessee’s defense strangling the life out of another opposing offense in a 70-52 wire-to-wire dismantling.

“Well, that’s what we’ve tried to be all year,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said after the game. “We’ve always felt that’s what our program was built on.”

Tennessee ranked No. 1 in KenPom.com adjusted defensive efficiency

Last Saturday, in a rally to beat Vanderbilt, Oklahoma scored 61 points in the second half alone, winning 97-67 at home. The previous season low for the Sooners was 62 points.

Tennessee went to No. 1 Auburn two weeks ago and held Auburn to just 53 points. The Tigers’ previous season low was 70. Florida’s previous low was 70, too, before the Gators finished with 44 last week in Knoxville.  

Auburn’s offense is ranked No. 1 in KenPom adjusted offensive efficiency, Florida is No. 5 and Oklahoma started Saturday at No. 15. The Sooners dropped seven spots to No. 22 after the Vols came to town. 

Tennessee’s defense is now giving up just 85.8 points per 100 possessions, the lowest since Texas Tech in 2022-23, at 85.0. The Vols have finished in the top five in KenPom’s defense each of the last four seasons: No. 3 last season (90.2), No. 1 in 2022-23 (87.5), No. 3 in 2021-22 (86.4) and No. 5 in 2020-21 (88.1).

“I thought we had great rim protection today,” Barnes said. “Not only with the block shots, we had a couple great verticality plays at the rim that turned out well for us. And we knew coming in, because again, the respect that we have for personally for Porter (Moser) and what he has done in his career and, obviously coming up here a lot when I was at Texas, this program and what he’s doing here. 

“And I thought our guys really focused hard. We talked a lot about personnel obviously, but that’s kind of what we’ve done all year.”

Rick Barnes: ‘Overall, we just had a good day’

Tennessee held Oklahoma to 32.1% shooting from the field and 26.1% from the 3-point line. The Vols blocked eight shots, had eight steals and gave up just 20 points in the paint, against 36 points of their own scored in the paint.

The Sooners scored 23.0% of their points at the foul line, where they went 12-for-12. They scored 12 points in the final five minutes, too, after Tennessee used a 9-0 run to build a 68-40 lead, its biggest of the game.

Despite another dominant day from the defense, Tennessee’s offense stole the headlines with its best 40 minutes of basketball this season. 

Th Vols shot 69.2% from the field in the first half and made their first five 3-point attempts, building a 22-point lead in the first half. They finished shooting 60.4% from the field and 42.1% from the 3-point line, winning by 18 points despite committing 19 turnovers. 

“We made shots early,” Barnes said. “We really put together two — the second half of the Missouri game then here today — maybe two of our best halves offensively all year. And we were able to make shots, which it always goes well when you’re doing that.

“… The last six minutes weren’t great. We turned it over. They turned us over some and we turned ourselves over too much. But overall we just had a good day.”