Five Plays: Arizona 75, Tennessee 70

tactics tactics tactics

So: Tennessee lost to Arizona, 75-70, in a game that had some annoying officiating but was largely tremendous basketball in which both teams really went hard and had effective tactics. Rick Barnes and Tommy Lloyd are two excellent coaches; they both showed off in this one. I figured that breaking it down into five specific plays might help you understand the importance of it. Also, I am on vacation so this is the best you’re getting for an intro, sorry.

Tennessee surprisingly hit the post hard

Considering Arizona entered this game in the 74th-percentile in defending post-ups while Tennessee ranked in the 36th-percentile in offensive efficiency on them, I figured posting up was not going to be the path to significant success. Of course, this is why I run a small-time Substack while Tennessee’s staff members are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year each.

Given Tennessee’s season-long averages, we could’ve expected Tennessee to finish eight possessions in this game with a post-up, per Synergy. They finished 15 with one and added another three post-ups that resulted in three-point attempts elsewhere. In the first half, it was Uros Plavsic getting the plurality of post-up run; in the second half, and more successfully, it was Olivier Nkamhoua.

Multiple times in the second half, Nkamhoua found positioning on the left block against Azuolas Tubelis. Normally this would be cause for mild concern, but both times, Tennessee reversed the ball while Tubelis’ eyes followed the ball. Nkamhoua in this clip takes advantage of the momentary lapse in concentration, gets quality positioning, and posts two easy points to keep Tennessee in it before their shooting caught up.

Would this work a second time if Tennessee ran this game back? I doubt it; I think Arizona would choose to double the post more. However, Tennessee had good answers for this, too. Four times in this game Arizona doubled a post-up; twice, Tennessee simply passed out of it into a 4-on-3 power play that resulted in open made threes. Clearly, Tennessee saw what could be a significant advantage and used creative passing and ball reversals to create an advantage where one hadn’t existed.

Arizona exploited the Tennessee backside, somewhat

Arizona’s not an offense that desires to take a ton of jumpers. To be fair, if you had that frontcourt, why would you? Synergy ranks the Wildcats in the 12th-percentile nationally in jump shot attempts per 100 possessions and in the 23rd-percentile in catch-and-shoot attempts. Tennessee’s goal in this game, however, was going to be to force the frontcourt to get rid of the ball and let the guards and wings attempt to win the game.

Tennessee wasn’t totally able to accomplish Goal #1 - Tubelis and Ballo combined for 37 points on 13-for-21 shooting - but they did make the rest of the team attempt 33 shots. In particular, Tennessee did a tremendous job of making Arizona take some tough jumpers. 13 of Arizona’s 27 jump shots in this game were pull-up/off-the-dribble jumpers, per Synergy, of which the Wildcats made one. One! That, my friends, is utterly tremendous defensive work.

Unfortunately, there are the other 14 to discuss. Ten of those catch-and-shoot attempts were deemed open, per Synergy. The good news, for Tennessee, is that players not named Courtney Ramey went 1-for-9 on their catch-and-shoots. The problem for Tennessee is that Courtney Ramey, the best shooter on the Arizona roster, went 4-for-5.

Multiple times in this game, commentator (and friend) Jimmy Dykes referenced how Arizona needed to hit Tennessee from the defensive backside to break things open. What Dykes means by this is pushing the ball to one side of the court, allowing Tennessee’s defense to sink in, then sending the ball back out with a pass or two to the other side where Tennessee’s not fully ready to defend.

The problem for most with attempting to do this is that they don’t have the athleticism, passing skills, and/or shooting skills to hit Tennessee on this. Every single college defense, no matter how stout, has an area you can attack. This is probably Tennessee’s. Arizona had one guy who was capable of really hammering that home, and you could argue his 4-for-9 outing from deep (everyone else 1-for-15) got Arizona over the hump in what was basically a 50/50 affair.

No one defended Tennessee’s off-ball screens better than the Wildcats

If you have watched a Tennessee basketball game, you know what we’re getting into here. Only one offense (Vanderbilt!) runs more off-ball screens in the 2022-23 season than Tennessee does, and if you’re not ready to have to run through body after body after body, Tennessee’s exotic smash mouth offense can really kill you on them for 40 minutes at a time.

Heading into this one, I thought this might be one of Tennessee’s best areas of opportunity to create positive separation. Clearly, the staff did as well. Tennessee finished 13 possessions in this game with off-ball screens, which is the fourth-most they’ve had in a game this season and the most against any opponent since Kansas. I don’t doubt that Tennessee figured they could find quality open shots against an Arizona defense that had largely looked pedestrian against good competition.

To my surprise, Arizona defended these incredibly well. Of those 13 possessions, only four resulted in open catch-and-shoot threes, and six of them resulted in pull-up/off-the-dribble jumpers, the second-highest total of the season for Tennessee. Here’s an example where Kerr Kriisa sticks to Tyreke Key like glue and forces him to put up an off-balance jumper that’s got too much mustard on it.

Tennessee got just seven points on these 13 off-ball screen possessions; their nine missed shots are the most they’ve had on off-ball screens all season. Some of this was bad shooting luck, but a lot of it was that Arizona knew Tennessee wanted to do this, prepped for it, and really gritted out some tough possessions that I was impressed by. I’m still not totally sold on Arizona being a very good defense, but in this particular matchup, Tommy Lloyd responded with a quality counter-attack of teaching his guards where the screens would come from and how to get around them.

Arizona had their worst* three-point shot selection of the season

SORT OF! Sort of. What this means is that Tennessee took Goal #2 - make the guards take jumpers - to heart. Arizona attempted 13 pull-up/off-the-dribble threes, of which they hit one. More important is that Tennessee took what Arizona wants to do - run a ton of off-ball screens to free up their guards to drive, which creates pressure for kickouts - and turned it into the biggest negative of the game.

Arizona generated eight pull-up threes from on-ball screens, and all were misses. Only a couple could be deemed good shots, really. Tennessee did everything they could to cut off Kriisa and Ramey at the pass and avoid drives to the rim. Ramey is able to get this shot off after Arizona sets a decent screen on Tyreke Key, but this is a 6’3” guard attempting to shoot over a 6’8” or 6’9” power forward with legitimate agility and length. This is the same reason why Kentucky’s three-point defense is almost always very good: you have to pull it from deep, and you have to get it off over long, tough wings and forwards.

Of Arizona’s eight threes off of ball screens, none were within 24 feet, per Synergy, and six were from 25 feet or deeper. That’s significant. That means Arizona was no closer than three feet from the line when getting these shots off, and every foot you’re further out creates a small-yet-notable drop in 3PT%. Tennessee drove the Wildcats further and further out, and while it didn’t always work inside the perimeter, it created a really tough shot quality from deep.

What tipped the outcome?

Well, free throws. Obviously.

But in terms of things that are a bit more controllable, Arizona was simply better at finishing after offensive rebounds. The Wildcats are a longer team than Tennessee, so it’s not that surprising, but the depth to which this was real is pretty surprising. Arizona had 10 offensive rebounds to Tennessee’s nine, which is nearly dead even, obviously. The problem for the Vols: Arizona scored 15 points after offensive rebounds. Tennessee: two.

The number of actual right-away putbacks Arizona had was very few - three all game - but in a game decided by five points, that matters. Tennessee’s only true putback was via Tobe Awaka in the second half, meaning Arizona won this mini-battle of Real Putbacks 6-2. Again: game was decided by five points.

I don’t know that Tennessee could’ve done a ton more here, necessarily; this is just a road game against a taller team where Tennessee got into serious foul trouble and had to play smaller lineups. I thought they largely did fine, but Arizona was able to hit shots after their offensive rebounds. Tennessee was not. In what was otherwise a very even basketball game, that tipped the scale.

---

This was a fascinating tactical matchup. Both teams ran some new stuff they hadn’t in other times; both teams ran some sets that were deeply effective; both teams ran favorite sets that the opposing coaching staffs had great counter-attacks for.

Regardless of officiating, I think this is what we want from college basketball: two legitimate top-10 teams, possibly top-5, playing their absolute hardest in a true road environment at the highest level the sport has to offer. More of this, please.