ORLANDO — Josiah-Jordan James fielded Santiago Vescovi’s pass in transition and went up for what should’ve been an easy dunk. Instead, though, James didn’t appear to have the right grip and he played it safe by simply dropping the ball in the hoop with 2 hands. He flashed a smile. After all, he avoided embarrassment and did what needed to be done.

Fitting. You could say the same about Tennessee’s performance Thursday night.

The Vols nearly coughed up an 18-point lead but held on to a Round of 64 win against 13-seed Louisiana. The Vols avoided losing to a double-digit seed for the 3rd consecutive NCAA Tournament.

It was a vintage Rick Barnes performance.

Lights out defense? Yep. Louisiana was held to 55 points, and the 19 first-half points marked the Ragin’ Cajuns worst offensive output in a half all season.

Frustratingly stagnant offense? Yep. Tennessee had 2 separate scoring droughts in which it was held without a point for 5-plus minutes.

An “is this really about to happen again” period late in the game? Yep. Louisiana got it to a 1-possession game in the final minute.

The good news is that “vintage Barnes” is still better than most. The bad news is that the concerns about Tennessee heading into March in the wake of the injury to point guard Zakai Zeigler didn’t exactly fade in a too-close-for-comfort win.

The bad news is that getting through Louisiana means a date with a red-hot Duke squad, which enters as a 5-seed having won 10 in a row. But throw out the seeds.

The Vols are underdogs Saturday.

If you don’t believe that, you probably haven’t had a chance to watch a whole lot of Duke. They’ve been doing the whole “defense” thing even better than Tennessee in the past month. The Blue Devils held Oral Roberts 33 points below its season average in a blowout win in the Round of 64. The same size and length that makes the Vols dangerous defensively can also be said about a Duke team that has been a different group with a healthy Dereck Lively protecting the rim.

Barnes is well aware of the daunting task his team is facing.

“Well, listen — and I really haven’t seen them a lot this year. I haven’t. But I know that they’re probably as hot as any basketball team in the country,” Barnes said. “I did, while we were at dinner the other night, Jim Boeheim was on with Tony Kornheiser, and they were talking about that he thought Duke was the team that was going to win the national championship. So that tells you a lot about them, that he would say that at this point in time.

“But I know Jon Scheyer has done a great job. I know they had some injuries early in the year and coming down the stretch and when you win your conference tournament. And they beat a good team today. What little bit I did see, I thought their defense was outstanding against a team that can really shoot the ball. And like I said, they’re a team that probably is as hot as any team in the country right now.”

Barnes is right. They are as hot as anyone in the country.

Consider that a 180 from the typical March matchups that the Vols have encountered under Barnes. All 4 of their NCAA Tournament losses came against lower-seeded teams. As mentioned earlier, 3 of those were double-digit seeds and the 1 that wasn’t was the 2019 team that entered as a 2-seed but fell in overtime to 3-seed Purdue in the Sweet 16.

That’s Barnes’ lone Sweet 16 appearance in the past 14 years. The narrative about him not getting it done in March has juice behind it.

What would be an ideal way to move past that? Knock off Duke to reach the Sweet 16 without Zeigler.

Perhaps getting Louisiana out of the way — and doing so by holding on amidst a furious comeback — is exactly what the doctor ordered for the Vols. They did have to make the in-game adjustment of being without Vescovi for the majority of the first half after he picked up 2 fouls in the first 7 minutes. And Tennessee found a way to win a game in which it turned the ball over 18 times, some of which Barnes called “ridiculous.”

There’s a difference between playing carefree and careless. The Vols bordered on the latter a bit too much. Against a blue blood with suddenly high aspirations like Duke, perhaps now is when Tennessee looks like the best carefree version of itself.

That means not tightening up when holding on to a lead late in the second half like it did against Louisiana, and like it did in last year’s upset loss to 11-seed Michigan in the Round of 32. There’s no denying that Saturday’s matchup against Duke will have a different feel than any recent NCAA Tournament game that the Vols have been a part of.

Saturday could force the Vols to be at Alabama levels of efficiency. Like Tennessee, Duke will slow the tempo, and if recent history is any indication, they’ll have no problem playing lockdown half-court defense.

Maybe that’ll result in Tennessee giving Duke a taste of its own medicine. Or maybe it’ll be another reminder of the Vols’ limitations under Barnes. Either way, quite the challenge awaits.

Duke will be anything but an open breakaway.