The opening game of the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship for the Virginia basketball team was competitive until it wasn't.

After battling No. 11 Tennessee to a 22-21 first half stalemate, the Volunteers doubled up the Cavaliers after halftime and ran away to a 64-42 win. That delivered the first loss for interim coach Ron Sanchez at the helm as UVA fell to 3-1 on the season. It's a quick turnaround for the Hoos to try to get back on track as the consolation game of the event is set for Friday night at 7 p.m. Virginia didn't finish its game until well after midnight eastern time, while St. John's went to double overtime before losing at the buzzer to Baylor. That means both teams will need to find a way to re-energize for a matchup less than 24 hours after their first loss of the year.

"I think we had a really good first half," Sanchez said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. "I think that we had them where we wanted them in the first half. I think we played our brand of basketball [in that half]. ... But we didn't do a good job on the glass and turnovers. I think we had double turnovers to our assists. That's not our brand of basketball. All of our turnovers turned into transition points for them. That's one thing. We've got to eliminate losing. You've got to take care of the basketball then you've got to take care of the glass. Their second chance points and our turnovers to their transition baskets is really what hurt us today."

Those problems certainly showed up on the the stat sheet. Tennessee poured in 30 points off of turnovers and banked another 19 from second chance points. The Vols owned a 30-2 edge in the first category and a 19-5 advantage in the second. During the second half surge, they had 18 points off turnovers and 11 second chance points. Overall, Tennessee grabbed 18 offensive rebounds, while UVA logged 18 turnovers against just 9 assists.

Ultimately, those issues wore down the Wahoos' resolve. After hanging in for 30 minutes - they trailed just 39-34 with 10:48 to go - the margin ballooned significantly down the stretch. Tennessee outscored UVA 25-8 in the final 10:35.

With that as the overview, some takeaways from the first loss of the season follow.

Difficulty Breaking Defense Down, Touching Paint With Dribble

Even if Cavalier fans enjoyed the beaches of the Bahamas, they probalby didn't have much fun watching the team running in a Tennessee defense that acted like quicksand.

Virginia struggled to create much movement or energy and never settled in any sort of an offensive groove for long stretches in this game. The Hoos couldn't find ways to break down the defense successfully and didn't get enough paint touches off the dribble to move the defense out of position. Individuals had difficulty getting past Tennessee defenders throughout the night.

That fit the season theme for the Vols. They entered the game allowing just 34.9% shooting overall to rank 14th nationally, 27.5% shooting on 3's to tie for 54th, and 0.859 points per possession (ppp) to rank 24th. It's a large part of why they own the No. 11 ranking in the polls this week.

UVA's numbers for Thursday night looked a lot like those averages, though the ppp was significantly lower at a rough 0.677. The Cavaliers managed just 28.6% shooting overall (14-49) and 30.0% from 3-point range (6-20). That added up to only 21 points per half.

The Cavaliers tried to generate an advantage with ball screens and mid-post touches. Neither worked with much consistency. Dai Dai Ames created some scoring partially through those screen concepts to finish with a team-leading 12 points on 3-8 shooting. He ended up as the only Hoo with double figures. Ames had 0 assists and 4 turnovers. Andrew Rohde added 8 points on 3-8 shooting with 3 assists 4 turnovers, while Blake Buchanan had 6 points on 3-4 shooting. No one else had more than 4 points.

That included UVA's three leading scorers from the season's first three games. Isaac McKneely, Jacob Cofie, and Elijah Saunders combined for 3-19 shooting, a tough to overcome 15.8% night from the field. McKneely was the only one with a bucket after halftime.

McKneely came in averaging 16.0 points per game, fresh off a 6-6 3-point night against Villanova. In this contest, the Volunteers bottled him up. He had 4 points on 1-6 shooting, the lone make a 3-pointer from 3 attempts behind the arc. McKneely did have 3 assists, but had a hard time shaking free for the most part. Jacob Cofie had started his freshman campaign averaging 13.0 points, but he did not get going Thursday and finished with 2 points on 1-5 shooting.

Elijah Saunders, the best candidate currently to try to work through the aforementioned mid-post touches, didn't score much either. He had 3 points on 1-8 shooting, the make coming on a 3-pointer that opened the scoring for Virginia in the first half. Among some of the mid-post opportunities, Saunders missed a face-up jumper, a fall-away jumper, and had a baby hook blocked at the rim. He had averaged 10.3 points coming into this tournament.

Defense Wilted In Second Half

Despite the offense's troubles, Virginia hung around in the first half thanks to its own defensive effort. Tennessee produced just 22 points in the first 20 minutes on 30% shooting (9-30) and landed at 0.759 ppp.

Part of UVA's solid defense in the first half was containing the guard play. The Volunteers weren't getting the movement they wanted at times either and coach Rick Barnes fumed during his halftime interview that his team wasn't good on that end, particularly with decision-making or rhythm. They had only 5 assists with 6 turnovers in that half. The Hoos held the backcourt duo of Chaz Lanier and Zakai Zeigler to 8 points combined before halftime. Plus, Buchanan had 5 defensive rebounds and 3 blocked shots in the opening frame.

That all flipped after the break. Tennessee shot a more respectable 44.4% (16-36) and dished out 6 assists vs. 1 turnover in the second half. The Vols also broke down the defense more, beating individual defenders off the dribble and taking advantage of slow or late rotations. That helped get better looks, but it also left the defense out of position for rebounding more oftne. They were all over the glass in the second half with 11 offensive rebounds. Buchanan's numbers give an indicator of some of those things as he tallied 1 defensive rebound and 0 blocks in the second half.

For Tennessee, the biggest change in the second half may hvae been the play of Lanier. He put in 18 points on 7-13 shooting (4-8 from 3) in the final 20 minutes. He helped crack open the game too. Over the first 5 minutes of the half, Lanier scored 11 points with a trio of 3-pointers providing the bulk of that punch. During that stretch, the Volunteers grew their lead from 1 to 9 points.

"Right now, he's playing at a really high level," Sanchez said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. "He's shooting the ball exceptionally well. He's kind of what we call a green guy on our scouting report - you've got to be there on the catch, you can't even let him look at the rim. Right now, he's shooting it with tremendous confidence. We did a good job in the first half. We really did not do the job in the second half, though."

Bahamas Part II

Virginia returns to action quickly with another top 25 opponent Friday. No. 22 St. John's lost 99-98 to No. 13 Baylor in double overtime to fall into this part of the bracket with the Hoos.

After Thursday's loss, Sanchez pointed to Tennessee's physicality as being a key part of the outcome. Led by coach Rick Pitino, the Red Storm can create similar problems. They had allowed just 0.839 ppp (18th) and 37.2% shooting (34th) entering this event. Plus, UVA didn't get a full run from its roster in its Baha Mar opener. Saunders played only 4 minutes after intermission. TJ Power, off to a slow start offensively at Virginia, played only 9 minutes in that half.

"Hopefully get rest, get some guys healthy. Down the stretch, we had a couple of guys that couldn't get on the floor," Sanchez said on the Virginia Sports Radio Network. "Just try to get our guys back so we can have the whole roster ready for [Friday]."

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