No. 21 Tennessee eyes turnaround vs. surging Texas A&M

After No. 21 Tennessee dropped a 91-67 decision at Florida on Saturday, Volunteers coach Rick Barnes was seething. All he could see on the stat sheet handed to him were the overabundance of turnovers listed.

When the Volunteers (11-5, 1-2 Southeastern Conference) play host to Texas A&M (13-3, 3-0) on Tuesday in Knoxville, the veteran coach hopes for a better outing regarding ball security.

"I'll take the blame for it, because I don't know if I've had a team to play that bad and do the things and make the decisions they made from out of bounds, those type things," Barnes said. "It was just really poor basketball. And that's on me."

Tennessee has struggled at the start of conference play. The Volunteers lost their conference opener to Arkansas behind poor free-throw shooting (12 of 23), followed with a home win over Texas before Saturday's breakdown.

The Vols committed 12 first-half turnovers and 18 overall. They nearly surpassed the 19 turnovers they committed in their season-opening win against Mercer.

"We're not tough enough yet as a team when things aren't going our way to know how to fight through it," Barnes said.

Against Florida, Tennessee was holding its own in front of a boisterous crowd in Gainesville, Fla. The game was tied at 26-all late in the first half before a flurry of mistakes created a 13-point halftime deficit from which Tennessee did not recover.

Tennessee committed four turnovers and had a shot blocked in a short stretch after the game was tied.

"You can't win this game on hope," Barnes said. "You can't. And give (the Gators) all the credit. After that, the last four minutes (of the half and on), they controlled the game and did what they wanted to do. And you know what? They got relaxed, they started playing. And we didn't guard, we didn't put up the resistance. Just way too many defensive breakdown coverages.

"At some point in time, you got to take a deep look within yourself as coaches, as players, and say, ‘OK, something's got to change here.'"

As for Texas A&M, things are trending in a different direction. The Aggies have won 11 of their last 12, including three straight in the SEC by relying on a stellar defense. In Saturday's 83-76 conference win over Oklahoma, the Aggies limited the Sooners to 4-of-20 shooting in the game's final minutes.

"It (has come) a long way, we've (gotten) a lot better," said sophomore guard Ruben Dominguez, referring to the team's defensive intensity. "We have to trust each other and press the ball more. We did that in the second half."

Oklahoma averages 84.4 points per game. The Aggies held the Sooners under 80, only the sixth time they have failed to surpass that mark this season.

"I thought our guys were fresh in the game late," Aggies coach Bucky McMillan said. "We were better defensively in the halfcourt in the second half because our guys took their matchups personally. Oklahoma had 17 turnovers, and we only had eight. We also shot more free throws."