Tennessee Basketball beat Kentucky on Friday to advance to the Elite Eight. That could become the new norm for the Vols.
I certainly don’t want to get ahead of myself, especially considering Tennessee just lost two straight games to the Cats, but the Vols one-sided victory against UK may well become a trend. It had better. Their next opponent, Houston, can out-Kentucky the Wildcats in one important area.
Kentucky coach Mark Pope and his team won those first two games with a new offense that Tennessee hadn’t faced all that often and a couple of hot shooting nights. That can topple the best programs in college basketball, but being unique and having a hot shooting night isn’t the key to consistent, long-term success, especially against Tennessee coach Rick Barnes.
It was obvious during Tennessee’s win against Kentucky that the Vols were prepared for Pope’s three-point, offensive attack. That’s why the Vols focused on guarding the perimeter and, essentially, ending any chance Kentucky had to win the game before the halftime break.
The only way Pope could beat Barnes’ attack consistently was to make adjustments or upgrade the talent level of his roster. That’s on him. This much is clear: Barnes now has a blueprint to beat Kentucky as long as Pope is pacing the sidelines. If the two were playing chess, it wouldn’t be checkmate, but Pope needs to think seriously about his next move since his Wildcats we’re never in the game against the Vols.
“It’s hard to talk about basketball right now,” a downtrodden Pope said after the game. “Congratulations to Tennessee. They played really hard and really well. I have a ton of respect for Coach Barnes. Mostly, we’re just sad that this is over.”
Time will tell if Barnes has simply figured Pope and his offense out. The Vols will always be defensive minded under Barnes, which will next be the case when Tennessee faces Houston in the Elite Eight on Sunday.
“We knew we had to defend the three-point line better,” Barnes said after the win against Kentucky. “…That was our number one goal. They run such good offense. We just wanted to take away the easy back cuts and the three-point line, and we did a better job today than the other two games.”
Tennessee’s basketball program is certainly more worried about the Cougars than the Wildcats. Houston is the best three-point shooting team in the nation, making 39.8-percent of their three-point attempts this season. For some reference, Kentucky is 27th in the nation in three-point shooting at 37.4-percent.
The Vols and Barnes may have Pope’s number, but that can wait until next season. They have to be even better defending the perimeter against Houston if they want to advance to the Final Four. If not, then no one is going to be talking about a possible leg-up on Kentucky in the future.
