After a pair of impressive wins in the Players Era men’s championship, No. 17 Tennessee makes the trip to upstate New York to meet Syracuse in the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday.
The Volunteers demolished Rutgers and took down No. 3 Houston in their second game in Las Vegas before being knocked off by Kansas 81-76 in the third-place game, losing a 12-point lead in the process.
“The guys that want to learn from this will do it,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said to the Rocky Top Insider after the loss. “And they’ll get better and move forward, but it’s not going to get any easier, which is the way it should be.
“But too many scouting report breakdowns, things we had talked about. Again, you can talk about we only had a day, but we’ve got enough guys that can understand that. But (Kansas) deserved to win the game because at the end, they did what they needed to get done and we didn’t.”
Tennessee freshman forward Nate Ament, who scored 20 points in the loss to the Jayhawks, has been averaging 17.9 points a game for the first eight (all starts).
The Vols (7-1) have been guided by the play of senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie.
A native of Greenville, Tenn., Gillespie transferred home after a year at Maryland and is scoring a team-high 18.5 points and shooting 35.3% from 3-point range.
“We can’t get where we’re putting everything on him,” Barnes said. “Some of those other shots that you’ve got to come up with or get fouled when you’re certainly struggling from the three. But you look at the stat sheet, too many guys, honestly, didn’t do the things that they need to do to help us win.”
Syracuse (4-3) also was in Las Vegas but came back empty against Houston, Kansas and Iowa State. The Orange lost all three games at the Players Era tournament, including a 31-point setback to No. 15 Iowa State on the last day last Wednesday.
“We’re very disappointed that we couldn’t get the results that we wanted,” Syracuse coach Adrian Autry said. “But in today’s game, in your nonconference, you’ve got to put yourself in position. The last 20 minutes is not who we are.”
There was bad news for the Orange when they arrived in Las Vegas. Sophomore forward Donnie Freeman, the team’s leading scorer at 17.8 points a game, showed up in a walking boot and did not play in any of the contests in Las Vegas. Autry has been coy about his status moving forward.
Freeman suffered a Jones fracture in the fifth metatarsal of his right foot during his freshman season and it eventually required surgery. A Syracuse spokesman said that the two injuries are not related.
Freshman guard Kiyan Anthony, son of former Syracuse great and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2025 inductee Carmelo Anthony, has tried to pick up the scoring slack. Kiyan Anthony averages 11.9 points over seven games (two starts), but he was held to 24 total in three contests in Las Vegas.
Tennessee will be the third ranked opponent Syracuse has faced this season. The Vols are averaging 85.9 points while allowing 65.4 per game this season. The Orange are averaging 74.9 points while yielding 65.3 per game.
