KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The nation’s second-best defensive team invited Arizona into its house Wednesday, and it didn’t go well for the Wildcats early.
Then, after Tennessee helped force five quick turnovers that led to an early 16-2 lead, the Volunteers watched Arizona big men Christian Koloko and Azuolas Tubelis become mired in foul trouble, and turned the whole thing into a 77-73 win over Arizona on Wednesday at Thompson-Boling Arena.
It was the first loss of the sixth-ranked Wildcats’ season and Tommy Lloyd’s head coaching career. The Wildcats dropped to 11-1 after their final nonconference game of the season while 19th-ranked Tennessee improved to 9-2.
“It’s an experience and we’re going to learn from it,” Lloyd said. “We came out really tentative against a really good, aggressive team and they put us on our heels. You can’t do that on the road.”
Wing Bennedict Mathurin said the Wildcats “weren’t ready to play” against the aggressive Volunteer defense, but managed to keep Arizona in the game by scoring 28 points on 8-for-16 shooting while collecting eight rebounds and dishing five assists.
Mathurin tied the game at 67 with a pair of free throws with 2:58 left, but Tennessee led 71-69 entering the final minute and hung on from there.
Tubelis made two layups in the final 14 seconds to cut Tennessee's lead to 76-73 with four seconds left but the Volunteers still sent home a near-capacity crowd of about 20,000 happily while “Rocky Top” blared repeatedly from the school band.
“It was hard game,” Mathurin said. “They had good fans and the environment was pretty tough. When we were in the huddle we said `Just us, on three.’ That was the main thing, just staying together.”
The Wildcats had plenty of opportunity to fall apart. They trailed by 15 points twice in the first half and, after quickly cutting Tennessee’s 34-21 halftime lead to just four points, went down again by 12 with eight minutes left before making a final push.
Arizona had pulled quickly back in the game after halftime by shooting 57.1% over the first eight minutes of the second half. But Tubelis picked up his third foul less than two minutes into the second half, and his fourth with 11:37 left. Koloko picked up his third with 14:21 left and his fourth with 10:35 left, just 10 seconds after he entered the game for reserve center Oumar Ballo.
Koloko managed to make an impact in his final stint on the floor. With four fouls hanging over him, Koloko dunked less than a minute after he returned with 7:37 left, cutting Tennessee’s lead to 60-55 and he later put back a missed shot from Pelle Larsson that tied the game at 62 with 5:07 remaining.
Then he was gone, fouling Fulkerson with 3:25 left, with Fulkerson hitting 1 of 2 ensuing free throws to give the Volunteers a 67-65 lead.
The absence of Koloko and Tubelis for much of the game forced Mathurin to play out of position at times. The Wildcats have only one other active post player, Oumar Ballo, with reserve forward Kim Aiken having missed five straight games for unexplained reasons.
“I just felt like the ref made some calls and we just had to play with it,” said Mathurin, who also fouled out with 21 seconds left in the game.
Overall, the Wildcats were called for 28 fouls, 12 more than the Volunteers. As a result, Tennessee went to the line nine more times than Arizona, hitting 18 of 27 free throws -- scoring six more points at the line than the Wildcats, which was more than enough to make the difference in the final score.
Still, while Koloko expressed considerable frustration with his fourth foul for a defensive reach, Lloyd wasn’t about to complain.
“Listen: I always tell our guys, the team that complains to the refs first and complains the most usually loses,” Lloyd said. “I don't like losing. So let's quit complaining to the refs.”
And instead of finding Koloko and Tubelis played tentatively after getting into foul trouble, Lloyd said it was more that they played too tentatively to begin with. Lloyd pointed to Fulkerson, the Volunteers' super senior big man, who led the Volunteers with 24 points, including six in the final three minutes of the game.
“This is what happens -- you're gonna go back and look at it and Fulkerson was way more aggressive than they were,” Lloyd said. “He was way tougher and way more physical. Therefore, to the aggressor goes to the spoils. That's how these deals work. He was the better player and the more aggressive player.”
Meanwhile, just before Koloko left the game for good, guard Kerr Kriisa’s more tenacious attitude in the second half led to a technical foul. Kriisa bounced back from three first half turnovers, drawing praise from Lloyd for playing "with force" after halftime, but his technical helped lead to three free throws from Tennessee’s Justin Powell that the Vols a 66-62 lead with 4:08 left.
“I don't know what happened,” Lloyd said. “Obviously the ref said he said something and it was untimely. He's gotta hopefully be smarter than that.”
In the first half, the Wildcats struggled on both ends of the floor, coughing up 12 turnovers and shooting 28.0% from the field in the first half, while also allowing the Volunteers to step all over them in the paint.
With Koloko and Tubelis each picking up two fouls in the first half and going scoreless, Tennessee outrebounded UA 24-15 and outscored the Wildcats 20-10 in the paint.
Mathurin nearly helped UA bail out of what were deficits of up to 15 points early, scoring 14 points on 4-for-8 shooting while hitting all five free throws he took, cutting Tennessee’s lead to 26-21 with a layup when 1:40 remained in the half.
The Wildcats wound up letting the Volunteers finish both halves on a roll, while never actually taking a lead, though Mathurin and Lloyd still found themselves bothered more by those first minutes of the game.
“You’ve got to take care of the ball,” Lloyd said. “You’ve gotta to play with force and fundamentals. Everything has to start with toughness. You can't tiptoe into games like this. You're not going to get any calls if you tiptoe into them, and you're going to get boat-raced. That's obviously what happened at the start.”
