Tennessee coach Rick Barnes still is worried about his team’s ability to close out games at this stage of the season.
The No. 23 Volunteers (20-9, 10-6 Southeastern Conference) will have a chance to ease his fears to a degree when they face South Carolina (12-17, 3-13) on Tuesday in Columbia, S.C.
Tennessee, which has lost two straight games overall, has dropped four contests this season after holding double-digit leads in the first half.
“It’s not the blown leads; it’s playing 40 minutes. That’s what it is. It’s being able to play for 40 minutes,” Barnes said. “And you expect runs. I mean, basketball is a game of runs at times, but it doesn’t have to be. But they’re like that because it’s really hard for players to be able to maintain their focus when maybe they turn the ball over, they go down the other end, and they don’t let it go, and they’re not on edge, thinking about what they’re doing right now.”
Ja’Kobi Gillespie collected 26 points and seven assists in the Volunteers’ 71-69 setback to Alabama on Saturday. He also tied his career high with eight steals, becoming the first player in SEC history to record as many as eight in two separate conference games.
Tennessee held the Crimson Tide to 28 points in the first half and led by 13 points with under 12 minutes to go. In fact, the Volunteers led for over 36 minutes and didn’t trail until the last half minute of the game.
“In the end, they made one more play than we did,” Barnes said. “We needed to get a stop, we couldn’t. We needed to come up with a big rebound, we didn’t.”
J.P. Estrella had 12 points and six rebounds and Jaylen Curry added 10 and nine, respectively. Felix Okpara chipped in with eight points and nine boards.
Tennessee star freshman Nate Ament sustained what appeared to be a right knee injury after just 11 minutes of play. The Vols’ second leading scorer (17.4 ppg) and leading rebounder (6.4 rpg) grabbed three boards but scored just two points on 1-for-5 shooting before leaving the game.
Ament’s status for Tuesday’s game with the Gamecocks is in question.
With two straight defeats and nine in the last 10 games, South Carolina’s season is in shambles. The poor run of play continued on Saturday with an 87-68 setback at Georgia.
Meechie Johnson was the lone bright spot for the Gamecocks, finishing with 20 points and four assists. It was his ninth game of 20 or more points in SEC play.
South Carolina trailed by 13 at halftime and finished the game shooting just 37.3% (22 for 59) from the field.
“It wasn’t a great day for us in general offensively,” South Carolina coach Lamont Paris said. “I thought we did a good job withstanding the barrage that took place early on in the game… In the second half, we just didn’t play great… We fell asleep.”
Eli Ellis and Kobe Knox each added 12 points each for South Carolina, which has lost four of its last five games at home.
