Texas trounced by No. 21 Tennessee, 85-71

The first SEC road trip for the Texas Longhorns under first-year head coach Sean Miller somehow failed to match the extremely low expectations for Tuesday’s matchup against the No. 21 Tennessee Volunteers in a 85-71 loss during which the Longhorns gave up a 6-0 run early in the game and only led once, 12-11, at the 11:52 mark of the first half.

Tennessee guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie scored a game-high 34 points for the Volunteers, becoming the latest opposing guard to surpass the 30-point threshold against the Longhorns this season.

A sloppy start for Texas with three turnovers and two missed layups by the first media timeout never really improved, as sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis dealt with foul trouble in the first half and Tennessee pulled away with a 10-0 run at the halfway point of the first half.

Gillespie was in complete control of the game over the opening 20 minutes, scoring 22 points on 8-of-10 shooting with two rebounds, two assists, and a steal as the Longhorns defense was rendered helpless in slowing down the two-time transfer.

Although Texas was able to force seven turnovers and create deflections in the early going, Tennessee was efficient when they got shots up, hitting 63 percent from the floor and 11-of-15 from the free-throw line as the Horns committed nine turnovers and shot less than 40 percent in trailing by 15 points at halftime.

An 8-0 run after halftime forced an early timeout by Miller as his team struggled to execute on both ends of the court with turnovers by Vokietaitis and junior wing Dailyn Swain — with the lead reaching 23 points, the result was well in hand for Tennessee.

Vokietaitis was benched during the timeout and only returned for 30 seconds before picking up his third foul, his last playing time of the evening.

In notable developments for Texas, Miller inserted sophomore forward Nic Codie and freshman forward Declan Duru into the rotation. Codie played sparingly after losing his starting job early in the season, seeing only nine combined minutes in the two blowouts to end the non-conference schedule. Neither had much of an impact with Codie barely impacting the box score with three points, a rebound, a block, and a foul in 17 minutes.

If those coaching decisions represented surprises, the shocking aspect of Tuesday’s performance was the poor play by Swain, who was unable to get anything going offensively after a career-best effort in Saturday’s loss to Mississippi State, turning the ball over seven times and scoring just five points while playing just six minutes in the second half.

Texas did go on a 10-1 second-half run to cut the deficit to 10 points as junior forward Cam Heide and graduate guard Tramon Mark hit back-to-back threes, but Tennessee responded with an alley-oop dunk late in the shot clock on the possession after Mark’s triple and a blocked shot led to a fast break that ended with Gillespie drawing a shooting foul and converting at the line.

Then the Horns were unable to successfully inbound the ball after Miller called a 30-second timeout in the wake of Gillespie’s free throws, resulting in Mark burning the team’s final timeout with 9:31 remaining. The result of the consecutive timeouts? Mark, the sixth-year guard playing his 151st college basketball game, dribbled to the baseline without purpose and had the ball stolen from him, sparking an understandable reaction from Miller, who threw his towel.

Fortunately for Miller, he was able to bench Mark quickly because junior guard Simeon Wilcher promptly fouled a jump shooter for a three-point play.

Few teams stack stupid basketball plays one on top of another like these Longhorns, one child after another told not to cross the street but constantly getting hit by busses nonetheless.

Miller was mad enough that senior guard Jordan Pope only played three minutes in the second half and walk-on guard Anthon McDermott entered the game with more than four minutes remaining and Tennessee only up by 13 points.

Whether those attempts at accountability alter any outcomes in the future will be on display when Texas travels to face No. 13 Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday.