Tennessee HC Rick Barnes' 'positive' reaction to heartbreaking loss to Auburn
Yesterday at 01:16 PM
The Tennessee basketball team fell just short in one of the best games of this college basketball season, dropping a true road game against No. 1-ranked Auburn in a 53-51 rock fight. Tennessee had a chance to win it at the end, but point guard Zakai Zeigler’s game-tying 3-pointer came up short.
Despite the loss, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes is only taking the positives from the heavyweight tilt, according to Mike Wilson of the Knoxville News Sentinel.
“I should be positive,” Barnes said, per Wilson. “They fought hard all night long.”
Auburn has been nearly impossible to beat on just about any court this season, only losing one game against No. 2 Duke on the road. The Tigers have now won 11 Quad 1 games to lead all of college basketball and have proven that they can compete with anybody on any day. Bruce Pearl and company are now 9-0 at home, so it is impressive that Tennessee was able to take them down to the wire on their home floor.
“I'm just proud of every guy,” Barnes said, per Wilson. “I just thought that we came in and battled the No. 1-ranked team in the country. Took it down to the last possession with a chance to win it.”
Tennessee shows defensive grit in loss to Auburn
Tennessee’s offense was unimpressive on Saturday night, as it was consistently unable to come up with good looks against Auburn in a close, low-scoring loss. There is definitely reason to be concerned with the offense, but it’s reasonable to expect the Volunteers to shoot the ball a little bit better next time around.
The defense was the most impressive part of this game from both sides. Auburn has shown that it has a very explosive, high-powered offense that can score a ton of points on just about anybody, but Tennessee was able to shut the Tigers down in this game.
Auburn scored 74 points against Houston, 83 points against Iowa State, 78 points against Duke and 87 points against Purdue this season, but it was only able to muster 53 points against Tennessee. Pearl’s squad only shot 31% from the field in this game and finished 3-for-20 from 3-point range, which are both numbers that allowed Tennessee to stay in the game until the very end.
If Tennessee is able to continue defending like this, it should be able to navigate a very difficult SEC slate that includes a ton of games against tournament teams. The Volunteers have shown that they have the ability to be among the best from that group, so they should have no problem getting back on track.
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