Never – NEVER – has a Tennessee basketball team looked so different from one day to the next.
Villanova punched the Vols in the mouth on Saturday at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament. They didn’t cry but they didn’t punch back. Tenacious defense by the Wildcats led to terrible Tennessee shooting and a not-so-grand total of 15 points in the first half. Faulty floor play and 14 turnovers turned that segment into a 20-point deficit and a total disaster.
The Vols might have fled the scene had there been an opt-out clause in their Mohegan Sun Resort contract. They stayed.
On Sunday, Tennessee dominated North Carolina. The Vols hit a sizzling 54.3 percent, best of the young season. They were 65.6 in the second half. They made nine of 20 three-point attempts. The Tar Heels never had much of a chance.
Rick Barnes did the unthinkable. He used three point guards – Kennedy Chandler, Santiago Vescovi and Zakai Zeigler – at the same time. Two are speed demons.
Zeigler, 5-8 and three-fourths, came in as a substitute and led the winners with 18 points. He is very quick. Carolina had trouble matching up and worse problems staying close.
Zeigler hit three of four long shots and four of five at closer range. He had five assists and no ball-handling errors.
Vescovi, the only Vol who looked like he knew what he was doing on Saturday, scored 17 on Sunday. He set a personal record with nine rebounds.
Chandler was much better on Day 2. He had 14 points, eight assists and five rebounds. He was reported several times for exceeding the speed limit.
John Fulkerson, age 24, had his best showing on the comeback trail. There were flashes of the good, old days. He made some inside moves, hit a fade-away jumper, outran the defense for a layup and scored 13 points. Alas, Fulky did miss one shot.
He contributed six assists and blocked a shot.
Justin Powell made his first start as replacement for Josiah-Jordan James, sidelined by illness. Brandon Huntley-Hatfield got more minutes than Olivier Nkamhoua (plagued by fouls).
Huntley-Hatfield was better on defense than he has been. Uros Plavsic, surprisingly, was better on offense than defense.
Barnes provided an explanation (sort of, somewhat) of his three point guards scheme.
“You go into a game sometimes and you can have thoughts, this or that … Those three guys fight hard on the defensive end … the tempo, the speed.
“One thing we have said all year is we want to play a very high tempo. A really high tempo. We got it with all three guys because any of the three can bring it, which they did.
“I thought they did a terrific job of taking care of the basketball and probing. Then when we went to our sets, they did a good job getting us into those.”
All I can add to that is they sure helped beat North Carolina. They did some nifty things with the ball. The team had 28 scoring passes.
The coach said the Vols started to win the Sunday game on Saturday evening. They watched the first half of the Villanova video. Nobody was happy.
“It just showed that if you are not locked in what can happen”
Barnes said he could see a change coming.
“I think more than anything, they know how hard they work together and how much time they put into it. They wanted to go out and play great team basketball. We got it going.”
You can say that again. They really got it going.
Marvin West welcomes reader comments or questions. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com