KNOXVILLE - The Tennessee men's basketball team has a certain recipe it must use to be successful this season, and it relies largely on defense, rebounding and senior leadership from guards Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner to create offense.
Two of those - defense and rebounding - are largely about effort. The third is more about execution, and when it hasn't been there, the Volunteers have struggled.
Saturday against Memphis was an example of that as the 19th-ranked Vols lost 51-47 to the 13th-ranked Tigers in front of a capacity crowd of 21,868 at Thompson-Boling Arena, halting a 31-game home-court winning streak that was the best in the country.
The Vols (7-2) are not the offensive juggernaut they were in 2018-19, when they averaged 82 points per game on their way to a 31-win season. The 2019-20 version of the Vols was always going to be different, but when the offensive execution has been where it's needed to be, they have won. Tennessee has averaged 73.3 points in its seven wins and has yet to allow 70 points to any opponent this season.
When opponents have made things difficult on Bowden and Turner, though, the Vols haven't fared all that well. They averaged just 52 points in the losses to Florida State and Memphis (9-1), and Bowden was 3-for-10 and Turner 4-for-14 from the field against the Seminoles.
Against Memphis, Bowden was 2-for-10 and Turner 1-for-11.
"Those are two terrific players, two senior guards," Memphis coach Penny Hardaway said. "To have them shoot like this, I don't think they'll ever shoot like this again in their career, but everything worked in our favor. We tried to make everything hard for those two guys; if they were going to win, it was going to be through those two guys, so I'm proud of my guys for sticking to the game plan."
There were bright spots for Tennessee. With Memphis doing its best to take the Vols' senior guards out of the game, it essentially left other players wide open as the Tigers dared the others to beat them. For a while, it backfired: Freshman guard Josiah-Jordan James, who was 3-for-13 from 3-point range coming into the game, knocked down a trio of 3-pointers, all on wide-open looks, which helped Tennessee ease out to a 17-5 advantage. Drew Pember, another freshman, came off the bench and played 13 quality minutes, scoring four points and attacking the rim.
But as the game kept progressing and Memphis got the pace where it wanted it to be, the Vols' shots quit falling. In the second half, some Tennessee players seemed hesitant to shoot - a combination of freshmen in a rugged test and older players now being asked to take on much bigger roles than in the past.
"I think doubt creeps in when guys shoot one or two and haven't made it. That's where you have to have confidence in the flow of the game, in the flow of the offense," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. "As a player you have to realize some nights, 'Maybe I'm not shooting the ball,' but you have to move on to the next play as opposed to being hesitant."
Tennessee's defense limited Memphis to 34% shooting, which kept the Vols in the game. It even had them leading a pretty ugly contest 47-46 after Turner's lone field-goal make, a tough contested layup with 2:15 to play. Then a breakdown on the defense led to a wide-open 3-pointer by Damion Baugh that put the Tigers up by two with 1:43 to play.
What followed for the Vols on the offensive end were missed 3s by Turner and James and a missed free throw by Yves Pons on the front of a one-and-one opportunity that would have tied the game.
The Tigers' Alex Lomax made two free throws with seven seconds to play to ice the win.
It's not a crippling loss for the Vols. It's a loss that can be learned from, but what can't be learned is what's already common knowledge.
"Lamonte and Jordan are going to be game-planned for," junior forward John Fulkerson said. "Teams are going to try to get the ball out of their hands, so it just leaves it for other guys to step up.
"We have to take the weight off their shoulders."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.