BTO’s Alabama Postgame Report

#26
#26
JCP201 said:
I don't know how long it has been, but Oats said they haven't lost in their arena in quite a while. Great great team win.

How extremely sad it will be on Saturday when it's Senior night and we lose so much? Santi and James have been here forever, and Knecht just fits in so well and obviously loves all things VOLS. (How I'd have loved to have him for more years)
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March 2022, 16 game home streak. Snapped! GB🍊
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#28
#28
Suppose Arizona losses to UCLA and Tennessee wins both games this week, that should put Tennessee as the #1 in West.
 
#29
#29
Everyone who played double-digit minutes contributed in a meaningful way. Another big game situation where JJJ showed out on both ends of the court . Mashack's big plays came at crucial times and helped sway the game to the good guys. Love Santi's defensive effort. All 3 shot well from 3 in a game where we struggled to score from deep.

Let's keep it going...GBO!
 
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#31
#31
TheMookieMonster said:
I cannot heap enough praise on Mashack for how he played. He was a menace on defense all night long and rattled Alabama on that end of the court. And to step up and make two huge 3’s in big moments? Fantastic.

He was shooting the ball very well to start the year and then he just stopped shooting. I hope this gives him the confidence to continue to shoot when he is open. If you can get 8 points from Mashack a night, we’re going to be extremely hard to beat.

On the flip side of that is Gainey, who I thought played very well in the first half when he was driving to the basket and drawing fouls. His speed was giving the Tide fits. But then he chucked up 6 3 point shots, most of them in the 2nd half and not a single one went in. I wish Santi or Mashack had the confidence Gainey does, and I wish Gainey had the basketball IQ to know when to stop shooting and to go back to what was working, driving to the basket. Still, he gave us some important minutes in the first half.

3-1 was always the realistic goal during this stretch, but now that we have won the first 2 I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be very disappointed if we dropped another game.

At this point, I’d prefer to lose to Kentucky at home if a loss was required, because no way do I want to share a conference title with this exceedingly mediocre South Carolina team that has played above their heads all year long. I hope our boys are ready to get some revenge and bury this team. Myles Stute is apparently injured, so they’ll be playing short-handed as well.

I tip my cap to LaMont Paris for the incredible job he has done this year, but that team has no business winning a conference title. 10-3 in games decided by 6 points or fewer and #2 in the KenPom luck metric. Time to end their miracle run.
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Agree, but I don't want to share it with Alabama, either. We are currently tied for 2nd in SEC regular season championships with Alabama and LSU. We each have 11. If Florida beats Alabama tonight and Tennessee just wins 1 of 2, Alabama is eliminated. Ideally, Florida wins tonight and Tennessee locks up the SEC tomorrow. Then the Kentucky game is just about beating Kentucky and not the SEC.
 
#32
#32
JCP201 said:
I don't know how long it has been, but Oats said they haven't lost in their arena in quite a while. Great great team win.

How extremely sad it will be on Saturday when it's Senior night and we lose so much? Santi and James have been here forever, and Knecht just fits in so well and obviously loves all things VOLS. (How I'd have loved to have him for more years)
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This will be an interesting offseason to see how we replace those guys. I think Carr and Dillione will make a jump in development and be very good players next season, especially Carr. But we're going to bring in at least 2, probably 3 from the portal, as well.

As for Alabama, I brought this up in another thread, it looks like Alabama loses Spears, Nelson, Estrada, and Pringle. That's a lot. But they do bring in 3 big time recruits. And Davin Cosby is a handful.
 
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#33
#33
TheMookieMonster said:
I cannot heap enough praise on Mashack for how he played. He was a menace on defense all night long and rattled Alabama on that end of the court. And to step up and make two huge 3’s in big moments? Fantastic.

He was shooting the ball very well to start the year and then he just stopped shooting. I hope this gives him the confidence to continue to shoot when he is open. If you can get 8 points from Mashack a night, we’re going to be extremely hard to beat.

On the flip side of that is Gainey, who I thought played very well in the first half when he was driving to the basket and drawing fouls. His speed was giving the Tide fits. But then he chucked up 6 3 point shots, most of them in the 2nd half and not a single one went in. I wish Santi or Mashack had the confidence Gainey does, and I wish Gainey had the basketball IQ to know when to stop shooting and to go back to what was working, driving to the basket. Still, he gave us some important minutes in the first half.

3-1 was always the realistic goal during this stretch, but now that we have won the first 2 I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be very disappointed if we dropped another game.

At this point, I’d prefer to lose to Kentucky at home if a loss was required, because no way do I want to share a conference title with this exceedingly mediocre South Carolina team that has played above their heads all year long. I hope our boys are ready to get some revenge and bury this team. Myles Stute is apparently injured, so they’ll be playing short-handed as well.

I tip my cap to LaMont Paris for the incredible job he has done this year, but that team has no business winning a conference title. 10-3 in games decided by 6 points or fewer and #2 in the KenPom luck metric. Time to end their miracle run.
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Stute being out hurts SC a lot. That kid is physical and has given UT problems his entire career, even at Candy. He may not always show up big in the stat sheet but they lost a physical defender that can also get hot on offense and knows playing UT and has typically played us well.
 
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#35
#35
ReadCT said:
Could not agree more about Mashack

One of the fun things about being a consistent fan is watching the kids grow up

I remember Mashack's first season: he was all effort but nothing more than flailing knees and elbows. To watch his maturation to what he has become is very satisfying
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NBA athlete/boody but I don't know if his 3pt shooting will be good enough for him to have an NBA career....he will get a shot and it's possible. Regardless, he has been a great VFL and will have a long pro career that will allow him to see the world and he is always welcome in TN.

I do think that we will see multiple future coaches out of Barnes players here as well
 
#36
#36
gainesvol82 said:
NBA athlete/boody but I don't know if his 3pt shooting will be good enough for him to have an NBA career....he will get a shot and it's possible. Regardless, he has been a great VFL and will have a long pro career that will allow him to see the world and he is always welcome in TN.

I do think that we will see multiple future coaches out of Barnes players here as well
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I’ve seen great improvement in his three point shot, and I believe that between now and next November, his shot will be even better. I’m excited to see what his scoring will look like next season.
 
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#37
#37
ndubvols said:
Thought the only reason they were in the game/took the lead is because we started settling for jump shots and 3’s, especially last 4 minutes if the first half. There was a while there we were shooting 3’s at a 2:1 clip. Also Dalton had some midrange jump shots early in shot clock hat were a bit forced. All this to say, we didn’t play all that well and still beat a really good team on the road. Part of that was the matchup like you said, but part of it seems to be the team coming together and having a lot of options that can step up as needed.

Edit: mashack was also huge. I’ve been calling for him to get more minutes lately and glad he made the most of them. Seems to really compliment knecht and zz well and think he needs more of Gainey minutes as it feels like we have enough scoring options as is.
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Gainey got aggressive when we went stagnant around the 8 minute mark of first half. He drew a lot of contact on what seemed like 5 or 6 drives over a 4-5 minute period. He helped us stay close to close the half when we weren't clicking on O and the the defense did its job.
 
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#39
#39
Excellent point with number 4. We have passed that test over and over. Tomorrow is a different type of test that we haven't always passed. Big physical half court basketball will be the challenge. I think we have improved in that area but we will find out how much tomorrow night. This will be a completely different game.
 
#40
#40
NighthawkVol said:
Agree, but I don't want to share it with Alabama, either. We are currently tied for 2nd in SEC regular season championships with Alabama and LSU. We each have 11. If Florida beats Alabama tonight and Tennessee just wins 1 of 2, Alabama is eliminated. Ideally, Florida wins tonight and Tennessee locks up the SEC tomorrow. Then the Kentucky game is just about beating Kentucky and not the SEC.
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Would be some BS to share a title with a team we beat twice. Why does SEC allow that junk?
 
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#42
#42
gainesvol82 said:
Gainey got aggressive when we went stagnant around the 8 minute mark of first half. He drew a lot of contact on what seemed like 5 or 6 drives over a 4-5 minute period. He helped us stay close to close the half when we weren't clicking on O and the the defense did its job.
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Agree about Gainey, and nothing against him but feel like mashack and gainey’s minutes should probably be flipped. Gainey did a good job attacking early, but the whole team quit driving when we went small to end the half when we should’ve put our head down more being in the double bonus.
 
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#44
#44
A little late to the Postgame, BTO you are the best at keeping this introspective...
Always look forward to your analysis.

This team is a tournament team built, it is a Final 4 run team. I am watching as much BB as I have ever done in my entire life.

We have depth, we are good, we are balanced, we present more problems for other teams than they have answers to resolve.

This team has shown more and more improvement as the season has evolved.
CRBs to date, I will have to say has done his best Coaching job since coming to Tennessee as he seems to make all the adjustments to weather the storm.

This schedule front end and back end for the season has been challenging, but this is battle testing and confidence building. It will be battle tested before the tourney.

Just go out and win the damn thing because it will not be because you have not faced the full gambit in the past two seasons.
 
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#45
#45
Dr H Lecter said:
I’ve seen great improvement in his three point shot, and I believe that between now and next November, his shot will be even better. I’m excited to see what his scoring will look like next season.
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I agree. If he can maintain his percentage from this year and take 2-3 more 3's per game then he will get more minutes and be a consistent low to mid teens scorer and arguably best overall defender in the country with size to guard 1-4.

That should be good for at least early 2nd round guy. Hope he does it because Zakai will get him clean looks.
 
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#46
#46
CAVPUT said:
Well, if bama loses to UF and SCjr beats us tomorrow, we'd share said title with SCjr who will have swept us this year, no? I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't turn it down either.
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Touche

But I think we torch them.
 
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#47
#47
Sudden Impact said:
A little late to the Postgame, BTO you are the best at keeping this introspective...
Always look forward to your analysis.

This team is a tournament team built, it is a Final 4 run team. I am watching as much BB as I have ever done in my entire life.

We have depth, we are good, we are balanced, we present more problems for other teams than they have answers to resolve.

This team has shown more and more improvement as the season has evolved.
CRBs to date, I will have to say has done his best Coaching job since coming to Tennessee as he seems to make all the adjustments to weather the storm.

This schedule front end and back end for the season has been challenging, but this is battle testing and confidence building. It will be battle tested before the tourney.

Just go out and win the damn thing because it will not be because you have not faced the full gambit in the past two seasons.
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Great post.... especially your point about presenting more problems than most teams can deal with.

The odds of enough of our offensive weapons having bad nights to significantly limit the offense is pretty low. Only happened a couple times all year. We have an elite PG, a 3 level scoring NBA wing that can also bring the ball up, multiple good outside shooters, slashers, mid range guys, skilled and physical bigs and an unselfish attitude that looks for the best shot.

It my not always be perfect but it stresses opposing defenses in ways we haven't seen under Barnes.....and then there's still our physical defense. Just a lot to handle in a tournament setting except for the few teams with elite big(s) and enough shooters to kick it out to.
 
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#48
#48
CAVPUT said:
Well, if bama loses to UF and SCjr beats us tomorrow, we'd share said title with SCjr who will have swept us this year, no? I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't turn it down either.
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What Paris has done with them is remarkable and I tip my cap. That said, we have to beat them and shut em up. As soon as we got done beating Bama, their fans were jumping into post game threads/topics and making it about them. That classless sheet ticked me off.
 
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#49
#49
BernardKingGOAT said:
Never as to both of them at the same time.
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Ok man whatever. Go back and look at our losses and let me know how they both did in those games.

A and M - JJJ - 4 pts, Vesco- 5pts
So. Car- JJJ- 2pts, Vesco- 10 pts
Miss St- JJJ- 3 pts, Vesco- 2 pts

Purdue- JJJ- 3 pts, Vesco- 8 pts
Kansas- JJJ-4 pts, Vesco- 21 pts
UNC- JJJ- 20 pts, Vesco- 0 pts

All I am saying is when they score 8 to 10 pts and play defense and rebound and not disappear - Tenn does a lot better and as ya see in our losses just not a lot of consistency from those two. When they are in sync and playing well and involved our team is a lot better.
 
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