Barnes wants Vols to take nothing for granted

KNOXVILLE, Tenn.-Tennessee coach Rick Barnes wants to make sure his third-ranked Volunteers avoid complacency after winning their first four Southeastern Conference games by a combined margin of 100 points.

"This game is a game of habits," Barnes said Thursday. "If you start letting down, it will snowball on you quicker than you might imagine."

So far, Tennessee opponents have felt things are snowballing on them.

The Volunteers note that the only other major-conference teams over the last 20 years to outscore their first four league opponents by at least 100 points were Duke in 2000-01 and Florida in 2012-13. Both those teams won at least a share of their conference title, and Duke went on to win the national championship.

Even so, Barnes isn't satisfied.

He spent much of his news conference noting that Tennessee was outscored in the second half of its 106-87 blowout victory Tuesday against Arkansas. It didn't really matter to him that Tennessee built a 55-34 halftime advantage, led by as many as 30 points and produced its highest single-game scoring total since November 2009.

The Vols (15-1, 4-0 SEC) have spoken for several weeks about needing to recapture the intensity they showed on defense last season.

A victory over Alabama would give Tennessee its first 12-game winning streak since the 1976-77 season. The Vols haven't faced a double-digit deficit all season and rank second among all Division I teams in field-goal percentage (.516) and assist-turnover ratio (1.71).

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