bleedingTNorange
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Sorry for no individual postgame reports to this point, I hope for that to change starting with tonight’s game, depending on the time it will either be late tonight or sometime tomorrow I get it posted
1. You’ve got the start to the year we all obviously hoped for, not much in the way of major tests and clearly 3-1 should’ve been the floor, but an early game at Louisville in which you were slight dogs should look good on the resume come March, and considering the fashion in which it was done made it even more impressive.
2. We’ve all become accustomed to Tennessee having a Top 5 defense under Barnes and offense lagging behind and what has been a hot topic come tournament time. Heading into this year losing Knecht many weren’t sure what to expect, and in fairness it’s a very small sample size to this point, but Tennessee has climbed the offensive rankings on KenPom each time out and now is up to #18 nationally, not sure on in season rankings but that would be the highest number since the 2019-2019 team with Bone/Schofiedl/Williams etc. After the Indiana exhibition I made the claim I thought this team would likely shoot a ton of 3’s and their fate would likely depend on that, well that has most certainly not been the case lol. Averaging only 19.3 attempts per game from deep which ranks 318th nationally, however shooting a blistering 41.6% from deep which is good for 24th nationally. Even better than that though is the 67.1% from 2 they are shooting which is good for 6th nationally, huge reason for this is the efficiency from Milicic 80% and Okpara 63% from 2, those are absurd numbers from your bigs. Ziegler is also a huge part, a guy who’s struggled from 2 is finishing very well so far this year from 2, also at 63% from 2 so far on the year. None of these are likely sustainable, however something Tennessee is doing a fantastic job of is taking the right 2’s, they’ve attempted about 5 shots outside the paint and inside the 3pt line, meaning everything is pretty much at the rim or a 3pt line, that’s peak efficiency formula.
3. So what about the defense…well it too has probably been a bit better than expected to start the year, it ranks #4 nationally on KenPom and considering the number of new faces it feels like that has to be a win. We obviously knew about Mashack and Ziegler, but Chaz and Igor have both been very good early as defenders, and both Okpara and Phillips have done a very good job early this season as well, Okpara bringing what many expected as a big time shot blocker, but also a little more physical than what we had been getting from Aidoo, so far it seems like he’s provided exactly what the staff was hoping for.
4. Individually could say a lot about a lot of guys, but I’ll try not to…Ziegler has had a great start to the year and outside of his outlier turnover game again Louisville he’s playing at an elite level to start the year, he’s shooting the ball incredibly well and if he continues his play he’ll find himself on an All-American list at seasons end. Chaz has brought exactly what you hoped for imo, he’s a knockdown 3pt shooter and has shown a bit of moxy and ability to get a bucket that we weren’t really sure was there. Igor had a slow start to the season but has really come on of late, would like to see him let the 3 fly more and not hesitate when open, but he’s been great, his footwork in the paint is elite and his length combined with that allows him to finish with high efficiency around the rim. He kind of feels like one of those guys that maybe doesn’t realize just how productive he can be, feels like he could mess around and find himself getting drafted after this year imo.
5. Can’t all be sunshine and rainbows so what’s the bad, well the obvious would be injuries/depth. This was a roster that already only had 11 scholarship players, most expected Boswell the freshman to redshirt and take a backseat, that certainly doesn’t appear to be the case. You haven’t seen transfer Darlinstone Dubar to this point and now you’ve got Cameron Carr & JP Estrella both expected to miss significant time, so for those keeping track that’s down to really 7 solid constant scholarship players. Now the silver lining might be that if you can avoid further injuries those 7 are arguably your top 7, and there’s a lot of new faces in that group, so those 7 getting as many minutes together as possible might not be a horrible thing, but obviously it’s not great having no depth and foul trouble would be a concern. Boswell continuing to develop will be something to monitor although we all know zeigler can give 35+mpg and realistically there’s no reason he shouldn’t in competitive games, the question mark will be Dubar and what he can bring, I would assume he’ll get opportunities in the Bahamas starting tonight so we should get a glimpse soon enough.
6. So we sit at 4-0 with 27 to go lol, so what’s the goal, what’s realistic, where do things stand. Barttorvik has us projected at 23-7 without game 2 of Bahamas figured into that, depending on the opponent gotta think odds of that game are around 50/50 so it’s fair to say projections today would be like 23.5-7.5, this is as of today one of the softer OOC of Barnes tenure, things can obviously change but tomorrows game against Baylor/St. John’s very well might be the only ranked OOC game we play, which obviously is an anomaly for a Barnes team. With that said with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma this is likely the toughest the SEC has ever been so that has to be factored into the equation. 23-8/24-7 based on previous years should have Tennessee firmly in the 2 seed discussion with an outside shot of a 1/3 seed, which once again is all you can ask for and hope for as a Tennessee fan for March. But that’s a long ways away, so let’s enjoy some Tennessee Basketball in the meantime.
GBO!!!
1. You’ve got the start to the year we all obviously hoped for, not much in the way of major tests and clearly 3-1 should’ve been the floor, but an early game at Louisville in which you were slight dogs should look good on the resume come March, and considering the fashion in which it was done made it even more impressive.
2. We’ve all become accustomed to Tennessee having a Top 5 defense under Barnes and offense lagging behind and what has been a hot topic come tournament time. Heading into this year losing Knecht many weren’t sure what to expect, and in fairness it’s a very small sample size to this point, but Tennessee has climbed the offensive rankings on KenPom each time out and now is up to #18 nationally, not sure on in season rankings but that would be the highest number since the 2019-2019 team with Bone/Schofiedl/Williams etc. After the Indiana exhibition I made the claim I thought this team would likely shoot a ton of 3’s and their fate would likely depend on that, well that has most certainly not been the case lol. Averaging only 19.3 attempts per game from deep which ranks 318th nationally, however shooting a blistering 41.6% from deep which is good for 24th nationally. Even better than that though is the 67.1% from 2 they are shooting which is good for 6th nationally, huge reason for this is the efficiency from Milicic 80% and Okpara 63% from 2, those are absurd numbers from your bigs. Ziegler is also a huge part, a guy who’s struggled from 2 is finishing very well so far this year from 2, also at 63% from 2 so far on the year. None of these are likely sustainable, however something Tennessee is doing a fantastic job of is taking the right 2’s, they’ve attempted about 5 shots outside the paint and inside the 3pt line, meaning everything is pretty much at the rim or a 3pt line, that’s peak efficiency formula.
3. So what about the defense…well it too has probably been a bit better than expected to start the year, it ranks #4 nationally on KenPom and considering the number of new faces it feels like that has to be a win. We obviously knew about Mashack and Ziegler, but Chaz and Igor have both been very good early as defenders, and both Okpara and Phillips have done a very good job early this season as well, Okpara bringing what many expected as a big time shot blocker, but also a little more physical than what we had been getting from Aidoo, so far it seems like he’s provided exactly what the staff was hoping for.
4. Individually could say a lot about a lot of guys, but I’ll try not to…Ziegler has had a great start to the year and outside of his outlier turnover game again Louisville he’s playing at an elite level to start the year, he’s shooting the ball incredibly well and if he continues his play he’ll find himself on an All-American list at seasons end. Chaz has brought exactly what you hoped for imo, he’s a knockdown 3pt shooter and has shown a bit of moxy and ability to get a bucket that we weren’t really sure was there. Igor had a slow start to the season but has really come on of late, would like to see him let the 3 fly more and not hesitate when open, but he’s been great, his footwork in the paint is elite and his length combined with that allows him to finish with high efficiency around the rim. He kind of feels like one of those guys that maybe doesn’t realize just how productive he can be, feels like he could mess around and find himself getting drafted after this year imo.
5. Can’t all be sunshine and rainbows so what’s the bad, well the obvious would be injuries/depth. This was a roster that already only had 11 scholarship players, most expected Boswell the freshman to redshirt and take a backseat, that certainly doesn’t appear to be the case. You haven’t seen transfer Darlinstone Dubar to this point and now you’ve got Cameron Carr & JP Estrella both expected to miss significant time, so for those keeping track that’s down to really 7 solid constant scholarship players. Now the silver lining might be that if you can avoid further injuries those 7 are arguably your top 7, and there’s a lot of new faces in that group, so those 7 getting as many minutes together as possible might not be a horrible thing, but obviously it’s not great having no depth and foul trouble would be a concern. Boswell continuing to develop will be something to monitor although we all know zeigler can give 35+mpg and realistically there’s no reason he shouldn’t in competitive games, the question mark will be Dubar and what he can bring, I would assume he’ll get opportunities in the Bahamas starting tonight so we should get a glimpse soon enough.
6. So we sit at 4-0 with 27 to go lol, so what’s the goal, what’s realistic, where do things stand. Barttorvik has us projected at 23-7 without game 2 of Bahamas figured into that, depending on the opponent gotta think odds of that game are around 50/50 so it’s fair to say projections today would be like 23.5-7.5, this is as of today one of the softer OOC of Barnes tenure, things can obviously change but tomorrows game against Baylor/St. John’s very well might be the only ranked OOC game we play, which obviously is an anomaly for a Barnes team. With that said with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma this is likely the toughest the SEC has ever been so that has to be factored into the equation. 23-8/24-7 based on previous years should have Tennessee firmly in the 2 seed discussion with an outside shot of a 1/3 seed, which once again is all you can ask for and hope for as a Tennessee fan for March. But that’s a long ways away, so let’s enjoy some Tennessee Basketball in the meantime.
GBO!!!
