Three point shooting continues to kill Tennessee Basketball
Tennessee basketball didn’t have what it took to take down Kentucky on Saturday as three-point shooting continues to be the death of the Vols.
Tennessee basketball isn’t horrible, but they’re not great either, and their game against Kentucky on Saturday pretty much laid that out perfectly.
The Vols lost by 13 to the Wildcats 77-64 in a game where Tennessee was never out of the game, but their shooting made it near impossible to complete a comeback.
Overall, the Vols shot 19-55 from the field, which comes out to 34.5%, which is 20% less than Kentucky’s shooting percentage.
That’s not great, but a three-pointer here and a three-pointer there and the Vols are right back in the game competing with Kentucky. The only problem there is Tennessee can’t make a three-pointer to save its life.
Tennessee shot 7-26 from three for 26.9% while Kentucky shot 50%. It’s ok if you can’t make threes, but if you know you’re not good at shooting threes, then stop shooting threes.
Everyone knows that the Vols can’t consistently make threes, so not only will some teams bait the Vols into shooting threes, but they want the Vols to shoot threes.
Santiago Vescovi is the only player on Tennessee to make more than one three-pointer in Saturday’s game where he shot 4-for-11 from three.
Jordan Bowden is supposed to be Tennessee’s guy from three, but he has struggled all season shooting from three, and his failure to find his shot from deep is a big hole in Tennessee’s offense.
Bowden had a pretty good game with 16 points but was only 1-4 from three. When you’re playing a team like Kentucky who has a good offense and can very quickly take a three-point game to a ten-point game in a few possessions, it’s dangerous to shoot and miss 19 threes in a game.
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Now the Vols are 13-10, and it’s becoming less and less likely that the Vols make the NCAA tournament. If Rick Barnes wants to find some success to finish the season, he’s going to have to change the offensive gameplan because this won’t get it done.