Saddled with a losing streak for the first time this season, No. 13 Tennessee can expect a sprint Saturday when the Volunteers take on No. 14 Illinois in the Music City Madness clash at Nashville, Tenn.
The Volunteers (7-2) fell to Kansas last week in Las Vegas, then lost by two points at Syracuse on Tuesday in the ACC-SEC Challenge.
Down a point, Tennessee had a chance to win with seven seconds remaining. Jaylen Carey’s mid-range jumper missed the mark. Still, the junior forward’s play was a bright spot as he scored a career-best 22 points and grabbed nine rebounds in 23 minutes off the bench.
“Maybe as hard as we’ve seen him play,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “He’s a guy that’s a problem for teams. But I thought Jaylen really gave us a lot there. I think he should have got the ball more, because he’s not selfish, he’ll make the right play out of it. Our guard play wasn’t very good.”
Tennessee turned the ball over 17 times, which Syracuse turned into 24 points. The Volunteers have coughed up double-digit turnovers in all but two games this season. Tennessee also has struggled from 3-point range lately, shooting 29.1% from distance over its last three games.
Illinois, though, allows opponents to shoot 40.3% from the floor and 32.1% from 3-point land this season. The Illini (6-2) also rank in the bottom 10 nationally in forced turnovers with 8.8 per game.
Illinois has largely won this season by daring its opponents to keep up with its offensive firepower. The Illini rank 14th in KenPom’s offensive rating metric, and the first time this season that they scored less than 81 points in a single game was their loss to No. 5 UConn last Friday. In that defeat, Illinois posted season-worst marks in shooting from the floor (31.7%) and 3-point range (20.7%).
While Illinois will have to get its offensive groove back, matchup with Tennessee is a concern too.
While Carey will likely leap to the top of the scouting report after his performance against Syracuse, Illinois coach Brad Underwood is focused on Vols freshman Nate Ament, who averages 17.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.
“Nate’s a very skilled player, can play off the ball, takes advantage of size matchups in the post area,” Underwood said. “He’s got a great little face-up game, so very talented and a guy that is projected as a top-five pick for a reason.”
The Illini are led by Kylan Boswell, who averages 17.3 points and 3.9 assists per game. David Mirkovic averages a double-double with 14.3 points and 10.o rebounds per game.
On his radio show this week, Underwood also revealed that Zvonimir Ivisic came away with a foot injury in the lead-up to the UConn game and Andrej Stojakovic rolled his ankle in practice that week. Both players struggled offensively against the Huskies, combining for just seven points on 2-of-14 shooting. Stojakovic averages 16.3 points per game this season.
For Tennessee, J.P. Estrella 12.0 points, 5.0 rebounds per game) missed the game against Syracuse with a right ankle injury.
