HOW TENNESSEE BEATS IT

Echo jammin’

To win this absolute must-win game, Tennessee desperately needs to attack the rim as soon as tipoff happens. Like, if in the first ten seconds, the ball is in John Fulkerson’s hands in the post, then it’s probably the best start one could realistically imagine.

This Arkansas rim defense is, by FG%, the worst Tennessee has played since Florida A&M. In that game, Tennessee went 16-of-23 at the rim and 8-of-32 everywhere else. If they did the exact same thing in this game, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

Anyway, they’ve got to attack quickly and make Arkansas sweat. Plus, Tennessee can use this time to attack the boards and draw fouls; this is the way to beat Arkansas in a game where they’re likely to shoot a little better than the Vols.

Mid-range attempts: no, mostly

Mid-range or non-rim two-point attempts, at this point, should be publicly flogged and shamed unless they are coming from one of the following three players: John Fulkerson, Jordan Bowden, or Yves Pons. All three are hitting 43% or better on these looks. Anyone else: please don’t do it.

I think it’s worth testing the 3PT% luck

Obviously, Arkansas ranking #1 in the nation in 3PT% allowed is going to get a ton of run on the broadcast. Whether the broadcasters will mention the studies that show 3PT% allowed is largely out of the hands of the defense, we’ll see. (They won’t. They never do.) It’s obviously hard to see what statistically works against the Arkansas perimeter defense when basically nothing has this year, but it does seem they’ve had struggles containing threes developing from the post at times, as well as plays developing in transition.

Play quality 2PT defense as a whole and you win the game

This is going to be a nice respite from playing a stretch of teams that were/are good at offensive rebounding. Arkansas doesn’t crash the boards hard at all for the most part, both as a system decision and because of height limits. Tennessee can own this and focus more on closing out hard in the paint, forcing Arkansas to finish through contact.

To be honest, I actually thought Tennessee did a decent job of this against Kentucky…but it didn’t matter, because Kentucky has Nick Richards and Tyrese Maxey and Tennessee does not. Oh well. Tennessee should also know that they’ll have to protect the mid-range from all of Jimmy Whitt’s 14-footers. Outside of Whitt, Arkansas doesn’t take very many bad shots, but they’ve got to make sure these are contested in some fashion.

They’ll take a good share of threes, so cover ’em

Three-point defense: please do it. Tennessee got a little unlucky against Kentucky, who made 5 of their 10 attempts, and in general they’ve been unlucky on three-point defense over the last three games.

I’m not worried about it, but Tennessee does have to make sure Arkansas is taking contested, tough threes. Nearly 40% of the Hogs’ shots are from downtown, which means they can allow a greater focus on stopping it compared to having to shut down the paint in the first place.

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