The Day's Summary

The fallout from Tennessee's exhibition loss at Duke carried through Wednesday, with the Volunteers still working through a difficult preseason stretch that included two blowout losses. Coverage revisited Duke's control of the matchup and its comfortable win in the scrimmage, while a statistical rundown of Tennessee's leaders at Duke offered a first picture of how production was distributed and which roles in Rick Barnes' rotation remain unsettled.

The sharpest messages came from inside the program. Barnes pointed to the aspect of the performance that bothered him most, and separately called for a stronger competitive spirit, framing Tennessee's problem in terms of fight and response rather than scheme. A Tennessee forward likewise identified what he sees as the team's biggest problem in the two blowout losses — a concern raised from the locker room itself, even though the coverage did not name the forward or the issue he singled out.

Hovering over all of it was one question Barnes himself cannot yet answer about this team. For all his experience, part of Tennessee's identity remains unresolved after the preseason, and the reporting suggested only real games will settle it.

That makes the response the story now. Naming a central problem can be useful only if it is corrected, and Tennessee will be judged by whether the Duke lessons are fixed before the regular season, when the margins and the consequences both grow. Tennessee still has time before the games count, but the window is no longer abstract, and the Volunteers themselves appear to know what sits at the top of the list.

A late item from the previous evening noted that Penny Hardaway says he and Rick Barnes are on good terms, with Hardaway describing their relationship in plainly positive terms. In a preseason dominated by hard assessments of Tennessee's play, it was a welcome reminder that the relationship between the two head coaches is one of cooperation rather than friction as both programs prepare for the season.