bleedingTNorange
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1. Sorry for the delay, was a hectic weekend, but got to watch and enjoy the Vols just whip up on Calipari and the Razorbacks, great win to open conference play. Really just dominated that game from pretty early on and continued to build a lead, really bothered them with our physicality and made life incredibly tough on them.
2. Player of the game has to once again be Chaz Lanier, I highlighted where he was at to end OOC play and said I wasn’t sure he could have a SEC run like Knecht had, I still think that’s not probable, however his opening act was beyond impressive. He continues to look like he’ll go down as the single season best 3pt exhibition of anyone in Tennessee history, which is insane company obviously. He has such an incredibly lighting quick trigger and needs very little room to get his shot off, I’m also waiting for one of these poster dunks to drop because he’s really drove the lane looking to finish more and more of late it feels like, Barnes has mentioned thinking he has another gear.
3. He may not get the player of the game but Milicic was great, hit a few 3’s, defended well, and most impressing put up 18 rebounds which is a game high of anyone in the Barnes era. His rebounding has really been an impressive attribute, which has both allowed him to play some 5 in smaller lineups but also has allowed us to be a dominating rebounding team when he’s paired with Okpara or Phillips on the court also, he’s a huge part of why we’re one of the better rebounding teams in the country.
4. I thought Okpara looked better out there, maybe it’s healing from the hip pointer or just getting more comfortable but to me he’s looked better the last week or two, a bit quicker and more athletic, and also playing a bit more physically. The number of lobs that he and Phillips are getting at the rim from Ziegler is really impressive, I don’t have a clue on the stats but from watching other teams around the country it really feel like Tennessee hits on more of those than just about anyone.
5. We really struggled to shoot well from 2 in this one, which has been one of our strengths up to this point…outside of the dunks it felt like we struggled to finish at the rim and had a lot of jumpers from 10+ feet which we usually shy away from taking. Will be interesting to watch that going forward in league play, teams are likely going to try and force us off the 3pt line and into the line and if you’ve got an Aidoo down low to make finishing tough it makes you stop and take a lot of those lower percentage twos, thankfully we dominated the boards to make up for it, but we didn’t shoot very well, especially from 2.
6. Getting wins in league play is going to be difficult as we all know, protecting home court is going to be as important as ever and we saw that on opening night, road wins will be nearly impossible to come by. This first 3 game stretch Tennessee needs to go 2-1 to hold serve, opening that up with a convincing W is a great start in doing that, will be a tall tall task to try and win at Gainesville, honestly at this point an argument could be made for top 2 or 3 toughest game on our whole schedule, so yea, not expecting a W and would be nothing to worry about if it’s a L, show up, play our game and see where the chips fall. After that it’s on the road at Texas, so to get to that 2-1 mark we gotta steal one of these road games. This first 3 game stretch of league play quite possibly could be considered our toughest 3 game stretch, in fact according to barttorvik it is, so if we could indeed get to that 2-1 mark in league play through 3 that would be a major W. It all starts tonight against Florida, should be a crazy atmosphere and fun night of college hoops.
GBO!!!
2. Player of the game has to once again be Chaz Lanier, I highlighted where he was at to end OOC play and said I wasn’t sure he could have a SEC run like Knecht had, I still think that’s not probable, however his opening act was beyond impressive. He continues to look like he’ll go down as the single season best 3pt exhibition of anyone in Tennessee history, which is insane company obviously. He has such an incredibly lighting quick trigger and needs very little room to get his shot off, I’m also waiting for one of these poster dunks to drop because he’s really drove the lane looking to finish more and more of late it feels like, Barnes has mentioned thinking he has another gear.
3. He may not get the player of the game but Milicic was great, hit a few 3’s, defended well, and most impressing put up 18 rebounds which is a game high of anyone in the Barnes era. His rebounding has really been an impressive attribute, which has both allowed him to play some 5 in smaller lineups but also has allowed us to be a dominating rebounding team when he’s paired with Okpara or Phillips on the court also, he’s a huge part of why we’re one of the better rebounding teams in the country.
4. I thought Okpara looked better out there, maybe it’s healing from the hip pointer or just getting more comfortable but to me he’s looked better the last week or two, a bit quicker and more athletic, and also playing a bit more physically. The number of lobs that he and Phillips are getting at the rim from Ziegler is really impressive, I don’t have a clue on the stats but from watching other teams around the country it really feel like Tennessee hits on more of those than just about anyone.
5. We really struggled to shoot well from 2 in this one, which has been one of our strengths up to this point…outside of the dunks it felt like we struggled to finish at the rim and had a lot of jumpers from 10+ feet which we usually shy away from taking. Will be interesting to watch that going forward in league play, teams are likely going to try and force us off the 3pt line and into the line and if you’ve got an Aidoo down low to make finishing tough it makes you stop and take a lot of those lower percentage twos, thankfully we dominated the boards to make up for it, but we didn’t shoot very well, especially from 2.
6. Getting wins in league play is going to be difficult as we all know, protecting home court is going to be as important as ever and we saw that on opening night, road wins will be nearly impossible to come by. This first 3 game stretch Tennessee needs to go 2-1 to hold serve, opening that up with a convincing W is a great start in doing that, will be a tall tall task to try and win at Gainesville, honestly at this point an argument could be made for top 2 or 3 toughest game on our whole schedule, so yea, not expecting a W and would be nothing to worry about if it’s a L, show up, play our game and see where the chips fall. After that it’s on the road at Texas, so to get to that 2-1 mark we gotta steal one of these road games. This first 3 game stretch of league play quite possibly could be considered our toughest 3 game stretch, in fact according to barttorvik it is, so if we could indeed get to that 2-1 mark in league play through 3 that would be a major W. It all starts tonight against Florida, should be a crazy atmosphere and fun night of college hoops.
GBO!!!
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