After a near-miss against Alabama, the Razorbacks continue their tour of the SEC’s best teams, heading to Knoxville to face Tennessee.
Meet the Vols
Rick Barnes is in his eighth season as Tennessee’s coach. The longtime successful coach of Texas (more than 400 wins in Austin) has had a strong second act in Knoxville and is currently the 37th-winningest coach in college basketball history.
Despite all of this success, tournaments have been a problem for the Vols. Barnes’ teams have won just two conference tournaments – 1994 Providence and 2022 Tennessee – and he’s been to just one Final Four and three total Elite Eights, all at Texas. At Tennessee, in particular, regular season success has not had a postseason follow-up. The 2018 team that shared the SEC regular-season title got a 3-seed and lost to 11-seed Loyola Chicago in the second round. The 2021 team got a 5-seed and lost to 12-seed Oregon State in the first round. Last year’s team got a 3-seed and lost to 11-seed Michigan in the second round. In nine of Barnes’ last ten NCAA Tournaments dating back to his time at Texas, his team’s run has ended at the hands of a lower-seeded team in nine of those. Even more incredibly, in 26 career NCAA Tournament appearances, Barnes’ teams have beaten a higher-seeded team just once, in 2006.
Vol fans were hoping that this year would be the Barnes breakthrough. They still are, to some extent, but five losses in Tennessee’s last eight SEC games has thrown cold water on any thoughts that the Vols could be a 1-seed in March. They are still a formidable team, but their incredible inconsistency may be catching up with them.
This chart of Tennessee’s opponent-adjusted by-game performances really shows you what kind of team you have. When the Vols are on, they are on. No team in the country has more overall game grades in the 96th percentile or better. You can see it in their final scores: 87-53 against Mississippi State, 85-42 and 85-45 against South Carolina, 70-41 against Georgia. But their season will always hinge on the games where they can’t completely dominate.
The theory here is pretty straightforward: Tennessee runs a simple, uncomplicated scheme, and if you lack the talent or the coaching acumen to overcome it, you’ll get blown out. But Barnes isn’t exactly a master of scouting reports or in-game adjustments, so if you can overcome the Vols’ talent, they can be out-schemed. Tennessee’s lack of offense always seems to catch up to it; in particular, the Vol scheme really spreads the ball around, so there is no dominant guy that can take over in a time of need.
Tennessee is the 2nd-best team with the 20th-best resume. That’s because the resume metric uses only wins and losses, not margin of victory. Tennessee can pump up its overall numbers with amazing performances, but one win is still just one win. The Vols are brutally inconsistent, and most of those non-amazing performances have come over the last few weeks, giving them some of the worst momentum in the country.
Model pick: Tennessee 70, Arkansas 60. The Vols are still really good, and this game being on the road isn’t helping the model pick.
Scouting Report
As mentioned above, Tennessee spreads around possessions, leaving them without a single dominant player. Barnes is like Eric Musselman in one way: he’s okay putting a bad offensive player on the floor, but he never likes to put a bad defender out there.
While there’s no one guy you can shut down to guarantee a victory, the two highest-usage Vols are the backcourt tandem of 5’9 Zakai Zeigler and 6’3 Santiago Vescovi. Zeigler often comes off the bench but has been starting in recent games, though that is mostly irrelevant as he leads the team in minutes. Just over half his field goals will be from beyond the arc, but he’s not actually a great shooter. He’s a much bigger threat on the drive. He draws fouls at a decent rate, but more important is his ability to pass off of the dribble drive. He can locate shooters on the perimeter – particularly Vescovi – or find his bigs around the post. He leads the team with a whopping 29% assist rate, and his stat profile is very similar to Alabama’s Jahvon Quinerly, who had a great game against the Razorbacks. I’m curious to see how the Hogs defend him, and he’s short but very quick, making it hard for taller guards to stay in front of him.
Vescovi, on the other hand, does most of his damage as a 3-point shooter. About three-quarters of his field goal attempts will be 3s, and he hits around 35%, which is decent for a high-volume shooter. He’s above average at drawing fouls when he does come inside the arc.
Both Zeigler and Vescovi are elite perimeter defenders. Both have very high steal rates (around 4% for each) and both can create a lot of chaos without fouling.
At the wing, you have 6’6 Josiah-Jordan James. He’s missed some time with an injury this season but plays starter-level minutes when healthy. He’s not a great shooter – about half his shots will be 3-pointers but he shoots just 31% on those – but his bigger issue is that unlike Zeigler, he does not draw fouls very well, so he becomes a liability if his shot isn’t falling. He’s an excellent defensive rebounder and, like Zeigler and Vescovi, defends without fouling very well.
The two main frontcourt guys are 6’9 Olivier Nkamhoua and 6’11 Jonas Aidoo. Nkamhoua is a good scorer around the rim but he doesn’t draw many fouls, turns it over too much, and isn’t very active as a defender. He’s probably the most likely Vol to get into foul trouble if you go right at him, as his 0.77 kills per foul is worst on the team. He has two inches on Jordan Walsh so I do wonder if we may see some Jalen Graham at the 4 or even a two-Mitchell lineup (bad feeling about that one). Aidoo is the shot-block specialist, swatting 6% of field goals put up against him. He also grades as the team’s best offensive and defensive rebounder, but he won’t get many set plays for him. The backup is 7’1 Uros Plavsic, who is basically the same player.
Two guys to watch off the bench are 6’2 guard Tyreke Key and 6’8 forward Julian Phillips. Key is a poor shooter (mostly 3-pointers) but an excellent perimeter defender, while Phillips grades as the best defender in all of Division I by a very large margin, per DRAPM. The numbers don’t make it obvious why Tennessee’s defense is so good when Phillips comes into the game, but he is above-average at all of defensive rebounding, stealing, and shot blocking.
When Tennessee has the ball
If Tennessee’s run of bad Marches continues, it will be because of this meandering offense. The Vols don’t really try to run except for fast breaks off turnovers. Their halfcourt offense is serviceable, but they have to work for everything they get.
Tennessee can create shots thanks to some elite offensive rebounding, but they struggle to get to the rim, make 3-pointers, and draw fouls. If they can’t get to the rim and draw fouls, the Hogs have a very good chance to shut them down.
I think keeping the Vols away from the rim needs to be a high priority for the Hogs. Arkansas couldn’t keep Alabama from getting to the rim, and eventually, even if you defend well, fouls and offensive rebounds start to take over when you repeatedly allow shots in close.
That means this game doesn’t match up well for Makhi Mitchell. We’ve been pretty critical of Makhi’s defense during SEC play, because although he’s a tough defender, he doesn’t do a good job of establishing defensive position away from the ball to discourage shots at the rim. As we wrote after the Alabama game, that was a poor matchup for him, and I’m not sure why he played that many minutes.
This matchup is slightly better, but still poor. Tennessee will use Aidoo (and Plavsic) to try and move the center away from a rim protector position to create paths to the basket for the guards (or Nkamhoua). That’s been an issue for Arkansas, as Makhi allows himself to be pulled out of position a bit too easily. I think Makhel gives you a better chance at center in this game.
When Arkansas has the ball
Good luck scoring on Tennessee! The Vols are elite at preventing transition buckets, but also elite defending in the halfcourt. They tend to force very long possessions, very few of which end in points.
The best shot for the defense is the one that doesn’t happen, and Tennessee makes a lot of shots not happen by forcing a ton of turnovers and clearing defensive boards. Zeigler and Vescovi are the main guys to watch for live-ball turnovers.
The Vols are content to gamble a bit on defense: they allow a ton of 3-point attempts, but they have the nation’s best 3-point defense. For a while, they were on a historic pace for 3-point defense, but a sharp regression to the mean has hurt them badly in recent weeks, and they even lost back-to-back games on buzzer-beaters, to Vandy and then Mizzou. So they are merely #1 in 3-point defense.
Even if you can get to the rim, the Vols are elite at defending there. Aidoo and Plavsic are major shot-block threats, while Nkamhoua and Phillips are very good defenders down low.
For Arkansas, it starts with not turning it over, despite Tennessee’s elite pressure defense. The good news is that the last three games – since Nick Smith returned to the starting lineup – the Hogs have had their 1st-, 3rd-, and 5th-ranked games in terms of best team turnover rate all year, and #4 was the Oklahoma game, in which Smith also played fully. It should come as no surprise, then, that Smith’s 12% personal turnover rate is second-best on the team (the best is Joseph Pinion, who has, incredibly, not turned the ball over once all year).
When Smith is mostly handling the ball instead of Anthony Black (28% turnover rate), Devo Davis (23%), and Ricky Council IV (19%), you’re going to have fewer turnovers.
If the Hogs can protect the ball, I actually think that Tennessee #1-ranked 3-point defense is a major vulnerability for the Vols. That seems crazy, but Tennessee has allowed five of its last eight opponents to shoot better than 50% eFG% from downtown… after allowing that in zero of their first 21. The Hogs, meanwhile, were above 75% in their last two games and are shooting well over 60% as a team since Smith’s return to the starting lineup.
Keys to the Game
- Win at the rim. Tennessee struggles to hit jump shots but can beat you around the rim… if they can get there. If the Hogs allow a lot of layups, the Vols can probably generate enough offense to let their defense carry them to victory.
- Protect the rock. Arkansas is getting better here, but Tennessee puts a ton of pressure on the ball. Some turnovers will happen against a good defense, but you can’t afford the careless passes or wild drives that have plagued the Hogs for much of the year.
- Splash some 3s. If the Arkansas defense plays well, the Hogs don’t need a ton of offense in order to win. Tennessee’s defense has had a charmed season, allowing a ton of semi-open 3-pointers while maintaining an impossibly-low 3-point percentage. Ken Pomeroy would call them lucky, and the Hogs can prove the analytics guys right by knocking down some critical 3-point shots.
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