SEC Notepad - February 18

Photo by Tennessee Athletics

Tennessee lost to Kentucky on Saturday. It marks their first loss since November 23 and just their second of the season. The Vols dropped from No. 1 in the AP polls on Monday, a position they held for 4 weeks. They went 7-1 in that span.

The Vols beat South Carolina on Wednesday and looked stellar on offense. Still, they struggled mightily in the first half of Saturday’s game at Kentucky. The Wildcats’ 14-0 run to begin the second half was too much to overcome. Tennessee simply couldn’t hit their perimeter shots that they are accustomed to knocking down.

Tennessee will have a chance to respond with Vanderbilt coming to Thompson-Boling Arena on Tuesday night.

Let’s take a look at what happened around the rest of the SEC this past week.

POWER RANKINGS

1. Kentucky (up 1): Kentucky moves up to No. 1 in this week’s power rankings. It’s the first time a team other than the Vols has held the top spot in our weekly rankings. Although the Wildcats lost to LSU on a controversial buzzer-beater earlier in the week, they soundly defeated Tennessee, 86-69 on Saturday.

2. Tennessee (down 1): The Vols beat South Carolina by 12 on Wednesday, marking their third consecutive win of exactly 12 points. They suffered their first loss since November 23, falling to No. 5 Kentucky by 17 points.

3. LSU (—): The Tigers improved to 11-1 in conference play, with wins over Kentucky and Georgia this week. After upsetting the Wildcats in Rupp Arena, LSU held on to defeat the Bulldogs by just 4 points.

4. Mississippi State (up 2): The Bulldogs returned to .500 in SEC play, with convincing wins over Alabama and Arkansas this week.

5. Florida (up 3): The Gators jumped into the top-5 of this week’s rankings, defeating Vanderbilt and Alabama.

6. Ole Miss (up 1): The Rebels won a road game against Auburn, 60-55 and also beat Missouri this week.

7. Alabama (down 3): Alabama probably couldn’t have had a worse week. They went on the road and lost by 19 points to Mississippi State, before returning home to lose to Florida by 18.

8. Auburn (down 3): The Tigers were less than impressive this week, falling to Ole Miss and beating Vanderbilt.

9. South Carolina (—): After losing to Tennessee on Wednesday, the Gamecocks responded by being Texas A&M, 84-77.

10. Texas A&M (up 1): The Aggies sit at 10-14 (3-9 in the SEC) after beating Georgia and losing to South Carolina.

11. Missouri (up 1): A 1-point win over Arkansas on Tuesday gave Missouri their third win in conference play, but they lost to Ole Miss on Saturday.

12. Arkansas (down 2): The Razorbacks had a rough week, falling to Missouri by 1 and losing to Mississippi State by 10.

13. Georgia (—): The Bulldogs are 10-15 (1-11), after losses to Texas A&M and LSU this week.

14. Vanderbilt (—): The Commodores remain the only SEC team without a conference victory. Vandy lost to Florida and Auburn this week. They haven’t won a game in 2019 and the road doesn’t get any easier. Their next 3 opponents are Tennessee, Alabama and Florida.

Jotting down some notes…

Positive Aspects for the Vols:

Although Tennessee lost in embarrassing fashion on Saturday, their attitude is encouraging. They aren’t sulking, because they know that that can turn this loss into 2 and possibly even more. That’s just not who this team is. They are built to learn from losses and move on. That’s a great attribute to have. In his press conference on Monday, Rick Barnes was particularity pleased with the mindset of Jordan Bone after Saturday’s loss. Coach Barnes was asked if anything stuck out to him after the loss and how the team responded. He replied with, “Nothing one bit stood out other than what we thought during the game. How did the team respond? When we walked in and asked the team, 'Do you feel any different today than you did two days ago? A week ago?' We won a lot of a games in a row, and I thought one of the most mature answers I've ever heard was when Jordan Bone said, 'Yes coach, I do feel different, because I'm really excited about going to practice tomorrow.' That's what he said, 'I'm excited about practice. We have to get better, you've been saying it.' That was one of the most mature things I've heard from anybody in a long, long time. We felt like if they really, really wanted to learn from this they would be eager to watch the tape and see themselves doing things that they know they shouldn't be doing. His response of saying he was excited about going forward and seeing how much better we could be as a basketball team."

Need to Improve On:

The Vols played a physical Kentucky team on Saturday. The refs were letting many obvious fouls go, but besides that, Kentucky was playing with more strength than Tennessee. The Vols will certainly face more physical teams in the NCAA Tournament, not to mention their rematch against Kentucky on March 2. Coach Barnes spoke about how the physicality affected the team on Saturday, saying, “They did exactly what we talked about and what we thought they would do. We knew they would be very physical with Grant. We expected that. He sees that a lot. The fact is, we didn't respond back. To their credit, they did it from start to finish. We never got going, we never got any flow offensively. We didn't play together either. The shots that we were taking, the things that we were not doing. It was a great atmosphere, everything was what you thought it would be. We just didn't answer the call with what we should have done. I'm not taking anything away from Kentucky, because they forced those issues. We'll learn from it. We have to learn from it. You ask if I'm concerned about it going forward. I'm only concerned about it if we don't realize what we need to do to get better. If we don't know it by now, we better after what happened the other night."

Up Next for the Vols:

Tennessee returns to Knoxville for a second meeting with Vanderbilt on Tuesday. No matter how poorly the Commodores have been playing, Vol fans always bring the energy to this instate rivalry game. Then, the Vols travel to Baton Rouge on Saturday to face No. 13 LSU. The Tigers are 21-4 (11-1 in the SEC) and the game will start at 11:00 a.m. local time. It will be another big road test for this No. 5 Tennessee squad.