Rick Barnes after Tennessee's 34 missed 3-pointers vs. Kentucky: 'I do think we can shoot the ball'

Of the 45 3-point attempts No. 8 Tennessee had Tuesday night against No. 12 Kentucky — the second most in program history — Rick Barnes estimated that roughly 95% of the looks were wide open. And that was by design.

“We knew they would give us all the threes we wanted,” Barnes said after Tennessee’s 78-73 loss. “We knew that was going to happen.”

And each time one of the 34 misses clanged off the rim, the Wildcats backed up a little farther, clogged up the lane a little bit more and conceded more room around the 3-point line, daring the Vols to shoot it again.

“Which,” Barnes asked during his postgame press conference, “why not?”

According to ESPN Stats & Info, Tennessee went 13-for-41 on uncontested jump shots against Kentucky, including 8-for-33 on open threes.

Barnes was asked after the loss if this team is good enough to shoot 45 threes in a game, even when the opposition is daring Tennessee to do just that.

“No, absolutely not,” Barnes said.

Tennessee has made just 15 of 67 3-point attempts over last two games

Tennessee is 15-for-67 from the 3-point line over its last two games, dating back to the 53-51 loss at No. 1 Auburn Saturday night, where the Vols started 0-for-14 from three. They’re 29-for-117 in their four SEC losses so far, starting with 14 straight misses at Florida on January 7.

“We’ve had games where we (have made shots),” Barnes said, “and I’m hoping at the right time, we’re going to knock them down. Teams go through it. I do think we can shoot the ball. I do.”

Tennessee went 12-for-27 from three against Baylor in The Bahamas in November. The Vols have made 10 or more threes in 11 of 21 games, but the previous high for attempts was 37 against UT Martin in November.

On Tuesday, Zakai Zeigler went 1-for-11 from the 3-point line. Chaz Lanier was 3-for-10. Darlinstone Dubar was 1-for-7 and Jordan Gainey was 2-for-8. 

After Lanier cut the deficit down to three with 4:10 left, Tennessee made just one of its final 11 3-point attempts, including nine straight misses after the Lanier make. Lanier made another with 31 seconds left, to make it a one-point game, but Gainey missed another three with 10 seconds to go.

Kentucky led by eight with 5:20 left and attempted just one shot from the field the rest of the game. Tennessee attempted 15 and made just two. 

The Wildcats, Barnes said, were content from the start to take away lobs from Zeigler to Felix Okpara. They were fine with Tennessee’s 5-foot-9 point guard driving to the rim and seeing how many times he could finish against Kentucky’s length. 

“And stay with some shooters with that penetration,” Barnes said. “But it is no different than everybody (else). We’ve been played the same pretty much all year.”

‘Obviously I didn’t get the message to them loud and clear. And we’ll fix that.’

So what is the answer when opposing defenses are sagging?

Launching threes early in the possession isn’t, leaving the condensed defenses ready to grab rebounds. What Barnes wants, and what the Vols didn’t do against Kentucky, was moving the ball side to side to open up paint touches.

“And we’ve talked about that enough, too,” Barnes said. “But we didn’t start the game executing. I can’t tell you the number of times we just didn’t execute what we said we wanted to do. That’s on me. 

“Obviously I didn’t get the message to them loud and clear. And we’ll fix that.”

It will have to get fixed quickly. No. 5 Florida comes to Knoxville on Saturday (Noon Eastern Time, ESPN), followed by No. 20 Missouri on Wednesday. The Vols then go on the road for four of the next five.

“All you got to do is look at numbers,” Barnes said. “And people are going to say, ‘Hey, until they prove they can make them, we’re going to let them have all they want.’”