Scouting report: No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers vs. No. 9 Arizona Wildcats

Star basketball writer Bruce Pascoe delivers the names, stats and storylines to watch ahead of Saturday night's showdown.

What: No. 6 Tennessee (9-1) at No. 9 Arizona (9-1)

Where: McKale Center

When: 8:30 p.m.

TV: ESPN2

Radio: 1290-AM, 107.5-FM

PROBABLE STARTERS

ARIZONA

G Kerr Kriisa (6-3 junior)

G Courtney Ramey (6-3 senior)

F Pelle Larsson (6-5 junior)

F Azuolas Tubelis (6-11 junior)

C Oumar Ballo (7-0 junior)

TENNESSEE

G Tyreke Key (6-2 senior)

G Santiago Vescovi (6-3 senior)

F Julian Phillips (6-8 freshman)

F Olivier Nkamhoua (6-9 senior)

C Uros Plavsic (7-1 senior)

HOW THEY MATCH UP

The series: Arizona dropped to 1-4 against Tennessee after losing 77-73 last season in Knoxville. The Wildcats’ only win in the all-time series was a 73-72 decision in Albuquerque on Nov. 13, 1998.

Game agreement: Arizona and Tennessee are finishing the second game of a two-year home-and-home series in which the Wildcats visited Knoxville last season. No cash was exchanged.

Tennessee overview: After finishing last season as the No. 3 team in defensive efficiency, the Volunteers have picked up where they left off. In fact, they might be even better. Tennessee enters Saturday’s game with the nation’s best defensive efficiency while holding opponents to just 20.2% from 3-point range (No. 1 nationally) and 41.4% from two-point range (No. 9). The Volunteers also turn opponents over 27.4% of the time, the third-highest defensive turnover percentage in Division I.

However, Tennessee isn’t a great shooting team offensively. The Volunteers hit only 46% of their 2-pointers and 32.4% of their 3s, and they also cough up the ball themselves at a pretty high rate (20.2% of Tennessee possessions have resulted in turnovers). But Tennessee makes up for its mediocre shooting with the second-best offensive rebounding percentage in the country, getting the ball back on 40.3% of its misses. It also takes 43.3% of its shots from 3-point range.

Even though Tennessee lost the hero of its 2021-22 win over Arizona, big man John Fulkerson, the Volunteers are strong up front, with 7-1 Serbian center Uros Plavsic (a redshirt at Arizona State during the 2018-19 season) and the 6-11 Jonas Aidoo, plus power forward Oliver Nkamhoua, among others. Highly regarded freshman forward Julian Phillips also brings rebounding and rim protection, averaging 2.8 offensive boards a game. Aidoo is expected to return after missing the Volunteers’ Dec. 11 game with the flu, but the Volunteers’ best multi-position defender and a 37% 3-point shooter, wing Josiah-Jordan James, is questionable after playing in just five games because of knee issues. Former UA recruiting target Jahmai Mashack brings defense, rebounding and energy off the bench.

In the backcourt, Tennessee can go with a smaller lineup featuring 5-9 Zakai Zeigler at point guard and 6-2 Tyreke Key and 6-3 Santiago Vescovi on the wings, though Zeigler has been coming on the bench. Zeigler (32.7%) and Key (38.0%) are two of Tennessee’s more prolific 3-point shooters but Vescovi has been hitting 3s at only a 29.2% rate so far (21 of 72).

While Tennessee has beaten Butler, USC, Kansas and Maryland, the Volunteers lost a 78-66 shocker to Colorado at Nashville in their second game of the season. In that game, the Buffs held Tennessee to just 23.1% shooting from two-point range and 10 of 37 (27.0%) from 3.

He said it: “I think they’re very similar to last year. They were very good defense last year. They’re very good defense this year. They lost Fulkerson and (guard Kennedy) Chandler, but they replaced Chandler with Key, who is a really good player, and everybody else kind of grow in their program. That’s always a recipe for success.

“They’re a very physical team. They’re gonna try to get into you. They pride themselves defensively and they have a lot of bodies. They’re not afraid of fouling. I can safely say they trust 9-10 players deep. The discriminant factor for them is how hard they play defensively. That’s where they put all their effort.”

“Colorado was very good at protecting the paint. Colorado and USC are probably two teams that did the best job in terms of attacking them. I don’t think there is a lot of similarities between what we do and what Colorado does, and so we have to find other ways of doing what they did.

“I don’t think people are shutting them out in the paint because they’re number one in offensive rebounds. I think they take a lot of long twos and they take a lot of 3s. They score 33 points per game in the paint, which is pretty good, and they get obviously get a lot of transition points from their defense. The way their offense is built, they have a lot of screens and motion and so they end with long twos. but what they want to shoot is 3s.

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“I feel the main difference is last year they had huge depth with their guards and wings, and maybe their bigs didn’t have that much depth. I feel this year they have a huge depth with their bigs and their guard (depth) is a little more normal.” — UA assistant coach Riccardo Fois, who scouted the Volunteers

KEY PLAYERS

Tennessee — Santiago Vescovi

One of the Volunteers’ strengths is that there really is no one go-to guy, with their top five scorers all clustered between averages of 11.6 and 10.1 points per game, but Vescovi is a returning all-SEC player who brings experience and all-around skills to the backcourt.

Arizona — Azuolas Tubelis The Wildcats’ normally consistent power forward probably doesn’t need video to recall how the Volunteers all but made him disappear last season. Even though the Volunteers excel at two-point defense, Tubelis will be motivated to use his speed and left-handed skills to test them inside this time.

SIDELINES

He’s been here before

Tennessee wing Jahmai Mashack isn’t really making a homecoming to Arizona this weekend, but it might feel like one.

Mashack is the younger brother of Kwesi Mashack, who played cornerback for the UA football team from 2014-17. Jahmai not only took in some of his brother’s games but also drew recruiting attention from former UA basketball coach Sean Miller.

“I went to plenty of games, went out to Tucson a lot,” Jahmai said. “So it’s definitely gonna be exciting for me just to go back to the West Coast to see a lot of my family coming in for the game.”

Even though Miller tried to bring him to the same school as his brother, Jahmai said Kwesi ultimately recommended he play for Tennessee.

“He was actually wanting me to come here,” Jahmai told reporters in Knoxville on Thursday. “Even though he did go to Arizona, he always (roots) for his team, but he definitely just wanted what was best for me.

“One of the biggest reasons (why he recommended Tennessee) was coach (Rick) Barnes. He connected with my family really well. And the team that were there, I was able to talk to them. They really seem like they cared for each other and that was very important for me.”

Final Four preview?

So who says December college basketball doesn’t matter? The Wildcats and Volunteers will actually be the last of five games involving 10 teams that could all go deep in the NCAA Tournament, part of what ESPN said “could be the best day of men’s college hoops this regular season.”

In other big games Saturday, Kansas will host Indiana, Gonzaga will play Alabama at Birmingham, Houston will play at Virginia while UCLA will face Kentucky in New York, all before the Wildcats and Volunteers tip off at McKale Center.

Their late show will be the second game of one of those increasingly rare, two year home-and-home series where highly rated teams from different regions play on each other’s true home court.

But Lloyd said he wasn’t focused on the big picture as much as the game itself.

“I want to go win the game. That’s all I’m thinking about,” Lloyd said. “There’s no feelings in that. It’s just we’ve got a great opponent coming in here. It’s gonna be a heck of a challenge and, and hopefully we can find a way to come out on top.”

Crème de la crème

By offering a scholarship this week to four-star 2025 forward Tounde Yessoufou, the Wildcats indicated a strong interest in the 6-foot-6-inch native of Benin.

Now playing for St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California, Yessoufou posted this week that he received the offer from UA, which is known to have only also have offered Gilbert Perry’s Koa Peat out of the class of 2025.

Yessoufou stood out for Team Why Not in 15U Peach Jam play last summer, after becoming the Santa Maria Times’ all-area MVP last season as a high school freshman.

Should he wind up at Arizona, Yessoufou could also keep the French language floating around the UA locker room. The Wildcats lost two French speakers after last season, Bennedict Mathurin (Quebec) and Christian Koloko (Cameroon), but still have two left in Oumar Ballo (Mali) and Adama Bal (France).

Numbers game

1 — Arizona’s Kenpom.com rank in offensive efficiency (119.5 points per 100 possessions).

1 — Tennessee’s Kenpom.com rank in defensive efficiency (81.2 points allowed per 100 opponent possessions).

2 — Wins in 10 career games coaching against Arizona for Tennessee’s Rick Barnes.

— Bruce Pascoe