By Otis Kirk
Tennessee jumped out to a 7-0 lead over Arkansas and never trailed on its way to a 75-57 win Tuesday night in Knoxville.
The Vols lost point guard Zakai Ziegler three minutes into the game to an injury, but plenty of other players picked up the slack. Tennessee outscored Arkansas 42-18 in the paint. Eric Musselman obviously wasn't happy with how the game went afterward.
"We didn't go in there, and when we did, we didn't finish," Musselman said of the paint. "Tennessee is really strong. They're really physical. It certainly wasn't the blocked shots. They only had two blocks, and I don't think they had a block in the first half. So, we were not driving in there and getting our shots altered. We were going in there and not finishing against verticality. You need to go and attack the rim against a physical team. You need to get in the body, and we did not do that from a physical standpoint."
The Hogs turned it over 16 times compared to 10 for the Vols. The Hogs also had just eight assists in the game. Musselman once again was unhappy with the physical aspect of his team's game.
"I thought Tennessee was much more physical than us," Musselman said. "We didn’t play up to the standards that we set the last three years. Disappointing loss for sure. Sixteen turnovers to eight assists, not a good assists to turnover ratio at all. Add in the fact in the first half, the rebounds, especially at the offensive end in the first half for Tennessee. Not enough physicality for sure. And then the free throw shooting is quite obvious."
The Vols outrebounded Arkansas 35-32, but the advantage was 22-14 in the first 20 minutes. Arkansas' struggles at the free throw line have been a subject of Musselman's unhappiness after recent games. They struggled there in the second half against Alabama in a three-point loss on Saturday. Against Tennessee, Arkansas hit 13 of 22 for 59 percent.
"The only thing I know at this time of year is get in the gym and shoot them with confidence," Musselman said. "It's college basketball in the SEC. Certainly, you want to shoot as a team over 72 percent, 73 percent at the minimum. And we have not lived up to that. It's our coaching staff's responsibility to make them better foul shooters, so the only thing we can do is continue to get in the gym and work on our free throw shooting."
In addition to the woes at the charity stripe, Musselman kept pointing to the physical nature of Tennessee's play that forced turnovers and led to them dominating the Hogs.
"It’s bothering our guys, the physicality," Musselman said. "We knew as the season wears on that you are going to have to play physical basketball. It only gets more physical. It’s going to be physical on Saturday. It’s going to be physical in the SEC Tournament. So again a very disappointing loss in many different ways for us tonight."
Arkansas was topped by Anthony Black and Davonte "Devo" Davis. They each had 13 points. Black added five rebounds and two assists. Davis had six rebounds, two assists and three steals. Nick Smith Jr. added 12 points and two assists. Ricky Council IV finished with 11 points, four rebounds and an assist. Morrilton's Joseph Pinion only played the final three minutes, but did connect on one of his two shots from distance.
Tennessee's Olivier Nkamhoua led the Vols with 16 points and seven rebounds. Santiago Vescovi added 14 points, six rebounds and five assists. Josiah-Jordan James had 11 points and three boards.
Arkansas (19-11, 8-9) will be at home on Saturday to host Kentucky and close out the regular season. Arkansas defeated Kentucky 88-73 on Feb. 7 in Lexington. Kentucky (20-9, 11-5) is playing better basketball now though. They will host Vanderbilt on Wednesday night prior to taking on the Hogs. Musselman was asked if he's confident the Razorbacks can bounce back with a good game on Saturday?
"Well, we didn't bounce back like we had hoped after playing Alabama," Musselman said. "We'll continue to do what we've done with all of our teams and go back and prepare. We've got to do a better job, obviously. But the only thing I know is to go back to work and continue to try to improve. We took a step backwards tonight, there's no question, both as a team and individually, we took several steps backwards. And so we'll get back and try to prepare for Kentucky."
Saturday's game will tip at 1 p.m. and be televised on CBS.