Arizona Postgame Report

[cncchris33]

1. Final outcome aside, we looked like we belonged with that team and were close to beating them in their house. A 5-pt loss to a team that good and experienced is nothing to hhangout head about.

2. I keep seeing people say "worst officiated game I've ever seen"...which it will be until the next time we get screwed in the eyes of our fans, and then that one will be the worst ever. Look, I get it...the officials were awful, and the fact that Rick Barnes called then out tells me they were bad as much as my eyes tell me that. I'm rarely one to blame officials, and we made enough dumb errors in a two-possession game that I'm not going to blame them for us losing this one. You don't go into an OOC opponent's gym and expect to be the beneficiary of the official's whistle, plain and simple, but it was bad...really bad, in fact.

3. To that point, I think Tommy Lloyd was smart to play up the idea that he thought last years game was poorly officiated and that fouls were called that they weren't used to. He got in yesterday's officials heads by playing that up and subconsciously insinuating he expected some home cooking of his own. Smart move by him.

4. Zero problem with Barnes calling out Plavsic for his antics. I love Uros, but he runs his mouth like an all-conference player whose stats don't match his smack. Be the enforcer, be the toughness of this team, but don't hurt your team. He hurt his team l, yesterday, and his coach is holding him accountable. I'd expect Tommy Lloyd to deal with Baby Bieber the same way for his antics that nearly cost his team.

5. We are really hampered by not having a legit go-to scorer and zero depth at PG.

6. Vescovi has to take smarter shots. His final shot from the left wing was awful. Not just the result, but the entire sequence.

7. Zeigler had 6 rebounds. As many as Uros and tied for the team lead. That can't happen. The smallest player on the floor in every game we will play can't be your leading rebounder in a game like this. ZZ just such a grit and toughness. If everyone played as hard as he did, we'd have beaten that team, easily. He was efficient, he scored at all three levels, and he did a good job facilitating the offense. He wasn't perfect and had a couple defensive breakdowns, but he wasn't the problem. He was our best player.

8. Nkamhoua played well, offensively. He got open looks and took advantage of then. He got looks on the block and showed some actual post moves to score. We needed him to be a better rebounder and defender, however.

9. Both teams shot nearly identical from the floor, TO margin was similar, we shot better from 3. The difference was in our rebounding numbers and FT shooting discrepancy. We can directly control one of those things. The other is likely to be an anomaly for reasons already discussed.

10. Julian Phillips. If you want to be a superstar, you can't disappear on the biggest stage. His worst game as a Vol, easily. Our leading scorer doesn't hit a shot from the field and only scores 2 points and we lost by 5 on the road. I'm not concerned about this team. I think our ceiling is limited because of our lack of PG depth and lack of natural scorers, but we will have a really good season. Get to the NCAAT and anything can happen, but those deficiencies become more glaring, as well.

 

[lostsheep]

“Baby Bieber” is classic. Haha

 

[calban]

Thought it was a great game, result about what I expected. Think our performance will help seeding in the tourney. 1 or 2 if we stay healthy. (or rather get healthy)

 

[Vol49er]

As said in the other thread I disagree a bit about the calling out Uros publicly thing (in process if not substance), but you get a like for taking up the breakdown mantle and for “Baby Bieber”

Also good point on ON’s defense. He escaped heat because he had a good offensive game, but in my eyes he was directly responsible for 6 points given up in a five point game (falling asleep on the inbounds leading to an open three, not boxing out leading to a tip in off a miss, and helping late on a drive leading to a three point play (on what could’ve been two). He’s gotta get more locked in. Applies to boxing out

 

[Houstonvol1]

I thought this was the game we really needed JJJ especially for his rebounding. This was a very physical game and strength mattered. Vescovi played really good defense. Nkamhoua really was really good away from the basket. He can be a real weapon for us stepping out to take threes. ZZ was awesome, fearless as usual.

 

[JCP201]

I'm wondering if this is the end of Uros as the starter. He was playing well last night, but also hurting our team:
Rick Barnes admits he's tired of Uros Plavsic's 'antics'

 

[cardvolfan]

I didn’t see that where Lloyd said last year’s game was poorly officiated. Last year during his post game interview someone asked him if bad calls cost Arizona the game. He said no and refused to acknowledge that. I liked that a coach would not make that excuse. I guess he changed his mind hoping that his latest comments would carry some weight, at least psychologically.

 

[cncchris33]

I didn’t see that where Lloyd said last year’s game was poorly officiated. Last year during his post game interview someone asked him if bad calls cost Arizona the game. He said no and refused to acknowledge that. I liked that a coach would not make that excuse. I guess he changed his mind hoping that his latest comments would carry some weight, at least psychologically.

I’m not sure he ever made it public, at least not immediately after the game, but it has been mentioned multiple times how Arizona thought they got jobbed a bit in Knoxville and that the game wasn’t called like it was on the west coast. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I think it was mentioned so much ahead of this rematch because Lloyd, his staff, or his players had commented on it off the record.

 

[Volfan1000]

1. Final outcome aside, we looked like we belonged with that team and were close to beating them in their house. A 5-pt loss to a team that good and experienced is nothing to hhangout head about.

2. I keep seeing people say "worst officiated game I've ever seen"...which it will be until the next time we get screwed in the eyes of our fans, and then that one will be the worst ever. Look, I get it...the officials were awful, and the fact that Rick Barnes called then out tells me they were bad as much as my eyes tell me that. I'm rarely one to blame officials, and we made enough dumb errors in a two-possession game that I'm not going to blame them for us losing this one. You don't go into an OOC opponent's gym and expect to be the beneficiary of the official's whistle, plain and simple, but it was bad...really bad, in fact.

3. To that point, I think Tommy Lloyd was smart to play up the idea that he thought last years game was poorly officiated and that fouls were called that they weren't used to. He got in yesterday's officials heads by playing that up and subconsciously insinuating he expected some home cooking of his own. Smart move by him.

4. Zero problem with Barnes calling out Plavsic for his antics. I love Uros, but he runs his mouth like an all-conference player whose stats don't match his smack. Be the enforcer, be the toughness of this team, but don't hurt your team. He hurt his team l, yesterday, and his coach is holding him accountable. I'd expect Tommy Lloyd to deal with Baby Bieber the same way for his antics that nearly cost his team.

5. We are really hampered by not having a legit go-to scorer and zero depth at PG.

6. Vescovi has to take smarter shots. His final shot from the left wing was awful. Not just the result, but the entire sequence.

7. Zeigler had 6 rebounds. As many as Uros and tied for the team lead. That can't happen. The smallest player on the floor in every game we will play can't be your leading rebounder in a game like this. ZZ just such a grit and toughness. If everyone played as hard as he did, we'd have beaten that team, easily. He was efficient, he scored at all three levels, and he did a good job facilitating the offense. He wasn't perfect and had a couple defensive breakdowns, but he wasn't the problem. He was our best player.

8. Nkamhoua played well, offensively. He got open looks and took advantage of then. He got looks on the block and showed some actual post moves to score. We needed him to be a better rebounder and defender, however.

9. Both teams shot nearly identical from the floor, TO margin was similar, we shot better from 3. The difference was in our rebounding numbers and FT shooting discrepancy. We can directly control one of those things. The other is likely to be an anomaly for reasons already discussed.

10. Julian Phillips. If you want to be a superstar, you can't disappear on the biggest stage. His worst game as a Vol, easily. Our leading scorer doesn't hit a shot from the field and only scores 2 points and we lost by 5 on the road. I'm not concerned about this team. I think our ceiling is limited because of our lack of PG depth and lack of natural scorers, but we will have a really good season. Get to the NCAAT and anything can happen, but those deficiencies become more glaring, as well.

Solid write up of last night's game and the T that Uros received took him out of the scoring mode that he was in to begin the game.

Phillips let his lack of offense impact the rest of his game last night except for a blocked shot that he had on Tubelis.

Tubelis and Ballo out worked Tennessee on the back boards last night and we did not drive the ball often enough to get to the free throw stripe.

Ramey is a chirper and these two teams can possibly meet again in the NCAA Tournament.

 

[orangemadam]

If Philips doesn't improve enough to become our "go-to" scorer (or possibly ON), we won''t get past sweet 16, much less EE.
Our defense can only take us so far. Plavsic really needs to start playing smart for UT to advance in NCAAT.

If JJJ lingers into Jan with this problem, we should just consider him done and develop the younger players.

 

[ColinS]

If Philips doesn't improve enough to become our "go-to" scorer (or possibly ON), we won''t get past sweet 16, much less EE.
Our defense can only take us so far. Plavsic really needs to start playing smart for UT to advance in NCAAT.

If JJJ lingers into Jan with this problem, we should just consider him done and develop the younger players.

Defense is nice but offense wins in the NCAA Tournament. That's not an opinion, it's a statistical fact.

 

[SGMVols]

Defense is nice but offense wins in the NCAA Tournament. That's not an opinion, it's a statistical fact.

Virginia won a natty in 2019 with defense.

if all it took to win a title was scoring, we would’ve won that title instead of going out in the Sweet 16.

 

[southgatevol]

Virginia won a natty in 2019 with defense.

if all it took to win a title was scoring, we would’ve won that title instead of going out in the Sweet 16.

But it is a statistical fact....

 

[VolGee4]

Pretty sure that most (if not all) of the past champions for a while now are in the top 20 on KenPom for both offensive and defensive efficiency. So, you really have to do both. We are at 48 in offense right now. Still can improve, and that’s just for champions.

 

[Willy14]

1. Final outcome aside, we looked like we belonged with that team and were close to beating them in their house. A 5-pt loss to a team that good and experienced is nothing to hhangout head about.

2. I keep seeing people say "worst officiated game I've ever seen"...which it will be until the next time we get screwed in the eyes of our fans, and then that one will be the worst ever. Look, I get it...the officials were awful, and the fact that Rick Barnes called then out tells me they were bad as much as my eyes tell me that. I'm rarely one to blame officials, and we made enough dumb errors in a two-possession game that I'm not going to blame them for us losing this one. You don't go into an OOC opponent's gym and expect to be the beneficiary of the official's whistle, plain and simple, but it was bad...really bad, in fact.

3. To that point, I think Tommy Lloyd was smart to play up the idea that he thought last years game was poorly officiated and that fouls were called that they weren't used to. He got in yesterday's officials heads by playing that up and subconsciously insinuating he expected some home cooking of his own. Smart move by him.

4. Zero problem with Barnes calling out Plavsic for his antics. I love Uros, but he runs his mouth like an all-conference player whose stats don't match his smack. Be the enforcer, be the toughness of this team, but don't hurt your team. He hurt his team l, yesterday, and his coach is holding him accountable. I'd expect Tommy Lloyd to deal with Baby Bieber the same way for his antics that nearly cost his team.

5. We are really hampered by not having a legit go-to scorer and zero depth at PG.

6. Vescovi has to take smarter shots. His final shot from the left wing was awful. Not just the result, but the entire sequence.

7. Zeigler had 6 rebounds. As many as Uros and tied for the team lead. That can't happen. The smallest player on the floor in every game we will play can't be your leading rebounder in a game like this. ZZ just such a grit and toughness. If everyone played as hard as he did, we'd have beaten that team, easily. He was efficient, he scored at all three levels, and he did a good job facilitating the offense. He wasn't perfect and had a couple defensive breakdowns, but he wasn't the problem. He was our best player.

8. Nkamhoua played well, offensively. He got open looks and took advantage of then. He got looks on the block and showed some actual post moves to score. We needed him to be a better rebounder and defender, however.

9. Both teams shot nearly identical from the floor, TO margin was similar, we shot better from 3. The difference was in our rebounding numbers and FT shooting discrepancy. We can directly control one of those things. The other is likely to be an anomaly for reasons already discussed.

10. Julian Phillips. If you want to be a superstar, you can't disappear on the biggest stage. His worst game as a Vol, easily. Our leading scorer doesn't hit a shot from the field and only scores 2 points and we lost by 5 on the road. I'm not concerned about this team. I think our ceiling is limited because of our lack of PG depth and lack of natural scorers, but we will have a really good season. Get to the NCAAT and anything can happen, but those deficiencies become more glaring, as well.

Great postgame report, I really appreciated reading it and I know it took a long time to write, so thanks for taking the time to do it. Always a great read, win or lose

 

[i2amavol]

If Philips doesn't improve enough to become our "go-to" scorer (or possibly ON), we won''t get past sweet 16, much less EE.
Our defense can only take us so far. Plavsic really needs to start playing smart for UT to advance in NCAAT.

If JJJ lingers into Jan with this problem, we should just consider him done and develop the younger players.

That's what these early season big matchups are for. Let's figure out our deficiencies and try to fix them now, rather than later.

 

[keenobserver]

We played well enough to win by 10-15 on a neutral court. I ain't worried about this team at all. They play as hard or harder than any team Barnes has had since he's been here.

 

[i2amavol]

Thanks Chris. All is right with the world again.

 

[kckempf]

Virginia won a natty in 2019 with defense.

if all it took to win a title was scoring, we would’ve won that title instead of going out in the Sweet 16.

Virginia in 2019: #5 adjusted defensive efficiency, #2 adjusted offensive efficiency.

https://kenpom.com/index.php?y=2019

They were low scoring because they were #353 in tempo. They minimized the number of possessions but they were deadly on their own possessions.

 

[PandamoniumReigns]

1. Final outcome aside, we looked like we belonged with that team and were close to beating them in their house. A 5-pt loss to a team that good and experienced is nothing to hhangout head about.

2. I keep seeing people say "worst officiated game I've ever seen"...which it will be until the next time we get screwed in the eyes of our fans, and then that one will be the worst ever. Look, I get it...the officials were awful, and the fact that Rick Barnes called then out tells me they were bad as much as my eyes tell me that. I'm rarely one to blame officials, and we made enough dumb errors in a two-possession game that I'm not going to blame them for us losing this one. You don't go into an OOC opponent's gym and expect to be the beneficiary of the official's whistle, plain and simple, but it was bad...really bad, in fact.

3. To that point, I think Tommy Lloyd was smart to play up the idea that he thought last years game was poorly officiated and that fouls were called that they weren't used to. He got in yesterday's officials heads by playing that up and subconsciously insinuating he expected some home cooking of his own. Smart move by him.

4. Zero problem with Barnes calling out Plavsic for his antics. I love Uros, but he runs his mouth like an all-conference player whose stats don't match his smack. Be the enforcer, be the toughness of this team, but don't hurt your team. He hurt his team l, yesterday, and his coach is holding him accountable. I'd expect Tommy Lloyd to deal with Baby Bieber the same way for his antics that nearly cost his team.

5. We are really hampered by not having a legit go-to scorer and zero depth at PG.

6. Vescovi has to take smarter shots. His final shot from the left wing was awful. Not just the result, but the entire sequence.

7. Zeigler had 6 rebounds. As many as Uros and tied for the team lead. That can't happen. The smallest player on the floor in every game we will play can't be your leading rebounder in a game like this. ZZ just such a grit and toughness. If everyone played as hard as he did, we'd have beaten that team, easily. He was efficient, he scored at all three levels, and he did a good job facilitating the offense. He wasn't perfect and had a couple defensive breakdowns, but he wasn't the problem. He was our best player.

8. Nkamhoua played well, offensively. He got open looks and took advantage of then. He got looks on the block and showed some actual post moves to score. We needed him to be a better rebounder and defender, however.

9. Both teams shot nearly identical from the floor, TO margin was similar, we shot better from 3. The difference was in our rebounding numbers and FT shooting discrepancy. We can directly control one of those things. The other is likely to be an anomaly for reasons already discussed.

10. Julian Phillips. If you want to be a superstar, you can't disappear on the biggest stage. His worst game as a Vol, easily. Our leading scorer doesn't hit a shot from the field and only scores 2 points and we lost by 5 on the road. I'm not concerned about this team. I think our ceiling is limited because of our lack of PG depth and lack of natural scorers, but we will have a really good season. Get to the NCAAT and anything can happen, but those deficiencies become more glaring, as well.

Always enjoy the write ups CNC

 

[walkenvol]

Thanks for stepping up Chris - great analysis.

 

[ndubvols]

1. Final outcome aside, we looked like we belonged with that team and were close to beating them in their house. A 5-pt loss to a team that good and experienced is nothing to hhangout head about.

2. I keep seeing people say "worst officiated game I've ever seen"...which it will be until the next time we get screwed in the eyes of our fans, and then that one will be the worst ever. Look, I get it...the officials were awful, and the fact that Rick Barnes called then out tells me they were bad as much as my eyes tell me that. I'm rarely one to blame officials, and we made enough dumb errors in a two-possession game that I'm not going to blame them for us losing this one. You don't go into an OOC opponent's gym and expect to be the beneficiary of the official's whistle, plain and simple, but it was bad...really bad, in fact.

3. To that point, I think Tommy Lloyd was smart to play up the idea that he thought last years game was poorly officiated and that fouls were called that they weren't used to. He got in yesterday's officials heads by playing that up and subconsciously insinuating he expected some home cooking of his own. Smart move by him.

4. Zero problem with Barnes calling out Plavsic for his antics. I love Uros, but he runs his mouth like an all-conference player whose stats don't match his smack. Be the enforcer, be the toughness of this team, but don't hurt your team. He hurt his team l, yesterday, and his coach is holding him accountable. I'd expect Tommy Lloyd to deal with Baby Bieber the same way for his antics that nearly cost his team.

5. We are really hampered by not having a legit go-to scorer and zero depth at PG.

6. Vescovi has to take smarter shots. His final shot from the left wing was awful. Not just the result, but the entire sequence.

7. Zeigler had 6 rebounds. As many as Uros and tied for the team lead. That can't happen. The smallest player on the floor in every game we will play can't be your leading rebounder in a game like this. ZZ just such a grit and toughness. If everyone played as hard as he did, we'd have beaten that team, easily. He was efficient, he scored at all three levels, and he did a good job facilitating the offense. He wasn't perfect and had a couple defensive breakdowns, but he wasn't the problem. He was our best player.

8. Nkamhoua played well, offensively. He got open looks and took advantage of then. He got looks on the block and showed some actual post moves to score. We needed him to be a better rebounder and defender, however.

9. Both teams shot nearly identical from the floor, TO margin was similar, we shot better from 3. The difference was in our rebounding numbers and FT shooting discrepancy. We can directly control one of those things. The other is likely to be an anomaly for reasons already discussed.

10. Julian Phillips. If you want to be a superstar, you can't disappear on the biggest stage. His worst game as a Vol, easily. Our leading scorer doesn't hit a shot from the field and only scores 2 points and we lost by 5 on the road. I'm not concerned about this team. I think our ceiling is limited because of our lack of PG depth and lack of natural scorers, but we will have a really good season. Get to the NCAAT and anything can happen, but those deficiencies become more glaring, as well.

If we can get ZZZ and ORN to play like they did last night, we’ll be a tough team to beat. Glimpses at the position groups with probably our two biggest question marks.

 

[cncchris33]

If we can get ZZZ and ORN to play like they did last night, we’ll be a tough team to beat. Glimpses at the position groups with probably our two biggest question marks.

Agree. Need ON to be more locked in defensively and on the glass, though.

 

[ndubvols]

Agree. Need ON to be more locked in defensively and on the glass, though.

Yea, he’s usually pretty good defensively but got lost a couple times last night. Their 4 guy (tebelis?)was also probably one of the more difficult matchups he’ll have all year though. Really talented player

 

[ColinS]

Pretty sure that most (if not all) of the past champions for a while now are in the top 20 on KenPom for both offensive and defensive efficiency. So, you really have to do both. We are at 48 in offense right now. Still can improve, and that’s just for champions.

Yeah, you have to be good at both of course but the ole "defense wins championships" is a myth. We are good enough on defense that we don't have to be great on offense to advance deep into the tournament but we do have to get significantly better.