Tennessee’s toughness not enough against Purdue
Tennessee played a basketball that looked a great deal like a rugby match against Purdue in the second round of the Maui Invitational tonight, falling 71-67 to the Boilermakers.
If you didn’t watch the game and just studied the post-game box score you wouldn’t be surprised that the Vols lost. You’d probably be surprised that they were in the game in final minutes with a chance to win.
Tennessee shot just 33% in the game and just 27% from three-point range. The Vols were whistled for 31 fouls compared to just 21 fouls for the Boilermakers, which resulted in Purdue shooting 48 free throws (48!) Compared to 30 for the guys in Orange.
Purdue out-rebounded Tennessee 44-33 with a 17-10 edge on the offensive glass.
Tennessee three most veteran performers; Santiago Vescovi, Josiah-Jordan James and Zakai Zeigler were a combined 3-of-18 from the field.
Despite all that, with under three minutes to play the Vols were in a 64-64 game with the second ranked team in the nation and Zach Edey, the reigning national player of the year.
I’m not suggesting that Tennessee fans should be happy with the loss. They shouldn’t, that goes without saying.
I am suggesting that losing by four to that particular opponent on a night when you really didn’t play very well (and we’re just bad offensively) should suggest that this team has a pretty high ceiling.
“Really hard fought game. I have the utmost respect for Matt (Painter) and his team and his program,” Rick Barnes said. “We knew it was gonna be a physical basketball game. Both teams weren’t gonna shy away from that, and playing hard and not many things are easy to come by, obviously. (Zach) Edey is a hard guy to defend.
“We got down, we missed some shots that I think over time we’re going to make at a much higher percentage. But just our effort, got down, didn’t flinch. We’ve been in those games before. We’re built for it. And just wish we could have, made a couple more shots.”
Edey was a problem for Tennessee all night long. The All-American finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Those numbers may not indicate it, but it felt like the Vols did a solid job on him and made him work for everything he got.
What Tennessee probably did not anticipate was that sophomore guard Fletcher Loyer would torch them for 27 points. Loyer and Edey combined for 60 of Purdue’s 71 points. The rest of the entire Purdue team scored 11 points on 5-of-26 shooting.
Tennessee’s offensive production chart looked similar.
Dalton Knecht (16) and Jordan Gainey (15) were the only two Vols in double digits.
Knecht was strong in the first half with 13 points, but he was scoreless in the second half came until he splashed a long three with :14 left to play.
Gainey had the opposite experience. He started the game 0-for-10 from the floor before making three threes in the final 5:39 of the game to give Tennessee a chance.
There are going to be nights were quality opponents are going to be able to make things tough on Knecht as Purdue did. When that happens the Vols can’t have their veteran trio of James, Vescovi and Zeigler have off nights like they did tonight.
“Proud of the effort and obviously wish we’d come away with a win. But this time of year, we’ll learn a lot from it and, um, we’ll be better for it. And moving forward, we’re going to continue to grow and get better,” Barnes said.
Tennessee didn’t show anything tonight that suggests they’ve been overrated in the pre-season.
Purdue is viewed by everyone as a Final Four contender, and Tennessee went toe-to-toe with them for 40 minutes on a night when the Vols really struggled offensively.
Tennessee was able to stay in the game pretty much by virtue of nothing but grit and tenacious defense.
Consider, the Vols led 31-30 at halftime and then proceeded to start the second half 2-of-14 from the floor in 13 minutes, yet kept pace.
We’re not here to give out participation trophies for coming close, but if you can’t appreciate that the Vols have nothing to hang their heads about after this one, I don’t know what to tell you.
Despite what we saw tonight, Tennessee is a better offensive team this year. Everyone has seen what Knecht can do and Gainey is an offensive spark off the bench that this team just didn’t have last year.
Zeigler is going to get better as he gets further removed from his knee surgery, that’s just a fact. And Vescovi has made more three-pointers in his career than any Tennessee player not named Chris Lofton or Allan Houston. Call me crazy, but I think he’s going to be ok.
There’s never a reason to celebrate a loss obviously, but in college basketball there’s never a reason to get overly worked up over a loss in November. Especially to a top-five team.
This Tennessee team is going to win a lot of games this year, and tonight they showed you that they’ll probably win a few that aren’t that aesthetically pleasing to watch from an offensive standpoint.
“They’re tough, but we’re resilient and I think we showed that today. And the reason why we were down, I don’t think it had anything to do with us for our toughness,” Jahmai Mashack said after the loss.
“We played that game four minutes, every four minutes and we went out and we did what we could and just a couple shots didn’t fall … but toughness wise, we did everything we could.”
No one is questioning this team’s toughness. That’s the only reason this game wasn’t a blowout. But if the Vols are going to reach their ceiling with this roster they’re going to have to find a way to marry that toughness with more offense against the caliber of opponent they faced in Purdue.
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