CAMDEN — FAYETTEVILLE - Tennessee’s offense starts with its Punter.
Not its punter, for this is SEC basketball not football that the Arkansas Razorbacks and Tennessee Volunteers, identically 11-11 overall and 4-5 in the SEC play, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Walton Arena on SEC Network television.
It’s the Punter.
Inherited senior Kevin Punter is not just a facilitator as the point guard for first-year Tennessee coach and former longtime Texas Coach Rick Barnes. Punter is the Vols’ by far leading scorer and second-leading scorer in the entire SEC averaging an incredible 23.1 points per game.
Punter 10.3 points last season as a solid but certainly not spectacular first-year junior college transfer for former Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall.
“It's a dramatic turnaround for a guy from one year to the next year,” Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said.
“He's the leader of that basketball team and his teammates, they know that.
Barnes increasing the tempo offensively and defensively with pressure obviously accelerates Punter’s game.
“Rick has them playing a lot freer,”Anderson said. “He (Punter) is more comfortable. Obviously he's shooting the ball well, but he's creating off the dribble as well. They talked about him changing his shot a little bit. It's more the kid is playing with a lot more confidence.
"I think Rick has given him the green light. He's playing well, like it's his team.”
Like Arkansas, only .500 but a recent victor over then SEC unbeaten leader Texas A&M, Barnes’ team is a young, inconsistent team. Only two games ago in the SEC vs. Big 12 Challenge lost, 75-63 to TCU, the Big 12’s last-place team. However Tuesday night in Knoxville, Tenn. against the same nationally No. 20 Kentucky Wildcats that throttled Arkansas, 80-66 at Walton, the Vols rallied from down 21 and won, 84-77.
Punter scored 27 including 11 of 12 from the free throw line, a bad omen for the Razorbacks. Arkansas was surpassed by the Florida Gators shooting 30 of 36 free throws to Arkansas’ 15 of 20 in Florida’s 87-83 SEC victory Wednesday night in Gainesville, Fla.
“He's scoring in numerous ways,” Arkansas senior guard Anthlon Bell said of Punter.
“Off the dribble, catch and shoot threes stuff like that. We just got to make him uncomfortable. We have to make sure somebody is with him at all times you know just get him out his rhythm.”
However Punter isn’t the lone Vols threat. Against Kentucky, Tennessee starting forward Armani Moore scored 18 points with 13 rebounds.
Fellow starting forward Admiral Schofield scored 11 and guard Detrick Mostella scored 13 off the bench.
Moore and Robert Hubbs, the sometimes starter/sometimes sixth man, average 12.0 and 11.6 points.
“It won’t be about Punter,” Arkansas senior point guard Jabril Durham said. “It will be about the whole team because they got a lot of guys that can score the ball.”
It’s a deep Vols team regularly rotating nine players.
That puts a premium on the Arkansas bench that Anderson has praised at times but not after Florida’s reserves outscored Arkansas’ reserves, 25-11.
“Our bench has got to come to play and got to come in and give us some substantial minutes,” Anderson said.
“Minutes that are going to be really positive for our basketball team. The more we get those guys to playing well it gives our guys who are starting an opportunity to finish the game off stronger. I see the defensive breakdowns and I think that is a little bit more that guys are kind wearing down a little bit.”
Four Arkansas starters, guards Bell and Dusty Hannahs, center Moses Kingsley and Durham, scored 24 20, 15 and 10 points at Florida.
Durham dishes a by far SEC leading 152 assists while Hannahs, 17.2 scoring average and Bell, 16.7, combined have hit 126 of 272 3-pointers while 6-10 center Kingsley inside averages 16.7 points and 9.4 rebounds.
Arkansas Scoring, Anderson said, hasn’t been Arkansas’ problem.
“We have got to trend people down in terms of scoring and some of the percentages that they are shooting,” Anderson said.
“We have to continue making taking care of the basketball a point of emphasis. We want to share the basketball but we don’t want to give it to the opponents. Especially when they can turn it into points.”