bleedingTNorange
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1. Apologies for missing out on early season reports, been really busy and while I’ve been able to watch all of the games finding the time to sit down and put together a solid report has been difficult. Things should be slowing down for me hopefully and I plan to get back to game by game reports, if it’s a really late finish it may be the next day but I’ll do my best. So since I’ve missed the other games this report will include both last nights game along with some general thoughts so far on the season as well as an outlook ahead.
2. Last night was another workmanlike performance from our Vols, these guys have played 5 sub 200 teams and have totaled a 415-216, an average score of 83-43, can’t ask for much more than that. Some often wonder why you play these games, and obviously you don’t want a schedule full of them, but 4-5 are necessary to get some younger guys some experience as well as trying some new things, you can only take advantage of that if you go out and dominate those games and Tennessee has done just that. Look around college basketball this year and that’s not always the case, nice to not ever have to sweat these kinds of games this year.
3. Never can/want to take away any concrete takes from a game like last night, but it was great to see Vescovi shoot the ball well from 3. As cold as he was to start the year a 5/5 night from 3 has his numbers on the year not looking nearly as bad. He started out the year cold from 3 last year as well and ended on an absolute heater, so hopefully that is much of the same this year. Nkamhoua looked really good and if it wasn’t for his Arizona performance I wouldn’t mention him, but would be nice if these back to back games is a sign of some consistency for him? With that said, he’s not a consistently good rebounder, and his offensive game is a bit more finesse than power, given JJJ’s absence and the emergence of Aidoo & Awaka I think you continue to let Nkamhoua get a bulk of his minutes at the 4 and Aidoo/Awaka/Plav handle the 5.
4. This team is playing defense at at an elite level, like borderline historic…their current mark of a defensive efficiency of 80.5 on KenPom is 2nd highest of any team in the last 11 years, only 2019-2020 Virginia had a better defensive ranking. They have been tremendous on that side of the ball and they have done it without arguably their best/most versatile defender, that’s a credit to the staff and players for really buying in. I don’t know if JJJ comes back and if he does when or how often he plays, it’s hard to think the defense could be any better but I suppose there is only 1 way to find out, hopefully we get to because it really would be nice to get to see this team at full strength.
5. The offense hasn’t been nearly as bad as the defense has been good, but it also hasn’t been great by any means either and we have to find some balance there even if in theory it means sacrificing a bit on the defensive side. Right now the offense ranks 49th and defense obviously 1st, typically the sweet spot is Top 20 in both offense and defense means you are a really good team. I’m not sure we will get to Top 20 offensively, and honestly if our defense stays what it is then we probably don’t need to be Top 20, but it does need to be better than 49th, that will be something to monitor. It’s much of the same tune we’ve seen in recent years, good defense but an offense that can disappear at times and cost us when it matters most.
6. So what do we need to do offensively to be better? Sounds overly simplistic, but shoot better, last night was a great start but obviously need more than just 1 game. Going into last nights game we were at 40.4%fg which ranks 335th, 46.5%2ptfg which ranks 313th, and 32.3% 3ptfg which ranks 263rd. Last year those percentages were 43.4%, 48.5% and 36%, a saving grace so far this year has been we are one of the very best ORB teams in the country so we are getting extra looks, if we could continue to do that while also shooting better percentages at all 3 spots our offensive efficiency would definitely start to climb. We are also doing a really good job getting to the line, and while we are better than average at the free throw line I think it could still be a bit better, currently 72.6% for 104th overall. 50%fg 40%3ptfg 75%FT is a lofty game by game goal, but something close to that is what we are looking for, and if we do that while continuing to pull down offensive rebounds at a high rate and take care of the ball limiting turnovers then we will be in pretty good shape.
7. So a little overview and look ahead time, Vols sit at 10-2 as they get ready to start SEC play. They’ve obviously got 1 more OOC game coming up when they host a Texas team that now looks like a much more winnable game than it did a few weeks ago with everything going on down there. Barttorvik projects us 26-5(15-3) so 16-3 to finish out the season, and winning the SEC regular season, that seems pretty lofty but who am I to argue with analytics. TeamRankings projects the same thing, 26-5(15-3) and conference champions, so obviously the computers really like Tennessee as compared to the other SEC teams. We definitely have a favorable start to conference play and really need to take advantage of that, really overall we have a favorable SEC slate, and I’m sure that is factoring into these projections. TeamRankings projects a 60% chance at a 1 seed, 20% 2 seed and 10% 3 seed, so 90% chance of 3 seed or better according to their math, which again seems pretty high but will gladly take it. If we are going to finish 26-5/25-6 which I guess now is the goal, we really need to start off SEC play hot, no reason we shouldn’t start 4-0 heading into a home matchup with Kentucky. Something else worth mentioning is that loss to Colorado doesn’t look quite as bad as it did when it happened, obviously would’ve liked to have won that and the fashion was ugly, but that’s flirting with being a Q1 loss, but yea, lots of basketball left to be played.
GBO!!!
2. Last night was another workmanlike performance from our Vols, these guys have played 5 sub 200 teams and have totaled a 415-216, an average score of 83-43, can’t ask for much more than that. Some often wonder why you play these games, and obviously you don’t want a schedule full of them, but 4-5 are necessary to get some younger guys some experience as well as trying some new things, you can only take advantage of that if you go out and dominate those games and Tennessee has done just that. Look around college basketball this year and that’s not always the case, nice to not ever have to sweat these kinds of games this year.
3. Never can/want to take away any concrete takes from a game like last night, but it was great to see Vescovi shoot the ball well from 3. As cold as he was to start the year a 5/5 night from 3 has his numbers on the year not looking nearly as bad. He started out the year cold from 3 last year as well and ended on an absolute heater, so hopefully that is much of the same this year. Nkamhoua looked really good and if it wasn’t for his Arizona performance I wouldn’t mention him, but would be nice if these back to back games is a sign of some consistency for him? With that said, he’s not a consistently good rebounder, and his offensive game is a bit more finesse than power, given JJJ’s absence and the emergence of Aidoo & Awaka I think you continue to let Nkamhoua get a bulk of his minutes at the 4 and Aidoo/Awaka/Plav handle the 5.
4. This team is playing defense at at an elite level, like borderline historic…their current mark of a defensive efficiency of 80.5 on KenPom is 2nd highest of any team in the last 11 years, only 2019-2020 Virginia had a better defensive ranking. They have been tremendous on that side of the ball and they have done it without arguably their best/most versatile defender, that’s a credit to the staff and players for really buying in. I don’t know if JJJ comes back and if he does when or how often he plays, it’s hard to think the defense could be any better but I suppose there is only 1 way to find out, hopefully we get to because it really would be nice to get to see this team at full strength.
5. The offense hasn’t been nearly as bad as the defense has been good, but it also hasn’t been great by any means either and we have to find some balance there even if in theory it means sacrificing a bit on the defensive side. Right now the offense ranks 49th and defense obviously 1st, typically the sweet spot is Top 20 in both offense and defense means you are a really good team. I’m not sure we will get to Top 20 offensively, and honestly if our defense stays what it is then we probably don’t need to be Top 20, but it does need to be better than 49th, that will be something to monitor. It’s much of the same tune we’ve seen in recent years, good defense but an offense that can disappear at times and cost us when it matters most.
6. So what do we need to do offensively to be better? Sounds overly simplistic, but shoot better, last night was a great start but obviously need more than just 1 game. Going into last nights game we were at 40.4%fg which ranks 335th, 46.5%2ptfg which ranks 313th, and 32.3% 3ptfg which ranks 263rd. Last year those percentages were 43.4%, 48.5% and 36%, a saving grace so far this year has been we are one of the very best ORB teams in the country so we are getting extra looks, if we could continue to do that while also shooting better percentages at all 3 spots our offensive efficiency would definitely start to climb. We are also doing a really good job getting to the line, and while we are better than average at the free throw line I think it could still be a bit better, currently 72.6% for 104th overall. 50%fg 40%3ptfg 75%FT is a lofty game by game goal, but something close to that is what we are looking for, and if we do that while continuing to pull down offensive rebounds at a high rate and take care of the ball limiting turnovers then we will be in pretty good shape.
7. So a little overview and look ahead time, Vols sit at 10-2 as they get ready to start SEC play. They’ve obviously got 1 more OOC game coming up when they host a Texas team that now looks like a much more winnable game than it did a few weeks ago with everything going on down there. Barttorvik projects us 26-5(15-3) so 16-3 to finish out the season, and winning the SEC regular season, that seems pretty lofty but who am I to argue with analytics. TeamRankings projects the same thing, 26-5(15-3) and conference champions, so obviously the computers really like Tennessee as compared to the other SEC teams. We definitely have a favorable start to conference play and really need to take advantage of that, really overall we have a favorable SEC slate, and I’m sure that is factoring into these projections. TeamRankings projects a 60% chance at a 1 seed, 20% 2 seed and 10% 3 seed, so 90% chance of 3 seed or better according to their math, which again seems pretty high but will gladly take it. If we are going to finish 26-5/25-6 which I guess now is the goal, we really need to start off SEC play hot, no reason we shouldn’t start 4-0 heading into a home matchup with Kentucky. Something else worth mentioning is that loss to Colorado doesn’t look quite as bad as it did when it happened, obviously would’ve liked to have won that and the fashion was ugly, but that’s flirting with being a Q1 loss, but yea, lots of basketball left to be played.
GBO!!!
) on the board.
