bleedingTNorange
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1. I had mentioned a few times I wouldn’t be shocked for Tennessee to have a closer than expected game at some point in one of these buy games to finish the OOC slate, they’ve been nearly flawless so law of averages says one was coming, sandwiched around holidays, Carr news, and in state school, this one made a ton of sense. Add in that MTSU isn’t terrible, they’re similarly KP ranked to Virginia & Syracuse, so better than many of those buy game opponents. Kudos to Tennessee though for coming out in the 2nd half and dominating, 48-24, would’ve preferred those halves been reversed but still nice to see.
2. Player of the game I’ll go with Zeigler, but Lanier had a strong case too, however hard to ignore 17pts 15ast, don’t have the numbers but guessing there are very few instances of those numbers being achieved this year. He really seems to continue to get more and more comfortable with this new team with each passing game, the lobs to Phillips and Okpara continue to connect at a higher rate it feels like. His outside shooting is still a struggle but I refuse to believe he’s going to have far and away the worst 3pt shooting season of his career, guessing he gets it figured out.
3. Milicic seems to have hit a bit of a funk offensively of late, but to his credit he’s defending and rebounding very well, 9+ rebounds in 5 of his last 6 games. I think he’ll continue to also get more comfortable on the offensive end, his versatility makes him a huge piece to the puzzle obviously being able to play the 4 or 5 for us, and stretch the floor from those positions, obviously needs to start hitting those outside shots again for us.
4. Lanier & Gainey continue to both be great for us on the offensive end though, I’ll do an OOC review on Lanier after next game, but right now he continues to outpace Knecht from a scoring aspect, which nobody saw coming. With that said DK obviously had some epic performances in conference play, and seemingly got better as the year went on, not sure we can expect that from Lanier. With that said if he can continue giving us what he has that should. be more than enough, same for Gainey.
5. Both guys are going to be heavily relied upon with the Carr news, on an already thin roster you hate to see it, but reality is he likely wasn’t going to have much of a role and he didn’t want to lose that year of eligibility playing sparingly. Yes it makes us thinner, but like I said when JP went down, the best teams often play 6/7 guys the bulk of minutes, maybe 8, this allows clearly defined roles, players to get more comfortable and in a flow on the court, more attention individually in practice and scouts etc…Tennessee clearly has their 7, Dubar seemingly is coming on as a very nice 8th, snd then you’ll have Boswell back soon hopefully as an emergency 9th. That’s deep enough and thankfully you’ve been able to keep likely your best 7, if you can avoid injury that should be fine. I get that’s a huge if, I do, but I’m not going to sit here each day panicking about a hypothetical scenario, right now we’ve got a great group of core players which is all you need, and it’s enough, if there’s other developments I’ll dive into them at that point.
6. Tennessee gets to 12-0 on the year, they’re 1 win away from a flawless OOC performance, which is beyond impressive. As I’ve said before, that would set Tennessee up beautifully heading into league play which is likely to be a gauntlet, I’ll dive deeper into seeding and expectations etc, but in a year where the league could get 12+ teams into the field you’re going to be absolutely battle tested each and every night, stacking as many wins as you possibly could OOC was paramount and going a perfect 13-0 would be an absolute best case scenario obviously, 1 more to go.
GBO!!!
2. Player of the game I’ll go with Zeigler, but Lanier had a strong case too, however hard to ignore 17pts 15ast, don’t have the numbers but guessing there are very few instances of those numbers being achieved this year. He really seems to continue to get more and more comfortable with this new team with each passing game, the lobs to Phillips and Okpara continue to connect at a higher rate it feels like. His outside shooting is still a struggle but I refuse to believe he’s going to have far and away the worst 3pt shooting season of his career, guessing he gets it figured out.
3. Milicic seems to have hit a bit of a funk offensively of late, but to his credit he’s defending and rebounding very well, 9+ rebounds in 5 of his last 6 games. I think he’ll continue to also get more comfortable on the offensive end, his versatility makes him a huge piece to the puzzle obviously being able to play the 4 or 5 for us, and stretch the floor from those positions, obviously needs to start hitting those outside shots again for us.
4. Lanier & Gainey continue to both be great for us on the offensive end though, I’ll do an OOC review on Lanier after next game, but right now he continues to outpace Knecht from a scoring aspect, which nobody saw coming. With that said DK obviously had some epic performances in conference play, and seemingly got better as the year went on, not sure we can expect that from Lanier. With that said if he can continue giving us what he has that should. be more than enough, same for Gainey.
5. Both guys are going to be heavily relied upon with the Carr news, on an already thin roster you hate to see it, but reality is he likely wasn’t going to have much of a role and he didn’t want to lose that year of eligibility playing sparingly. Yes it makes us thinner, but like I said when JP went down, the best teams often play 6/7 guys the bulk of minutes, maybe 8, this allows clearly defined roles, players to get more comfortable and in a flow on the court, more attention individually in practice and scouts etc…Tennessee clearly has their 7, Dubar seemingly is coming on as a very nice 8th, snd then you’ll have Boswell back soon hopefully as an emergency 9th. That’s deep enough and thankfully you’ve been able to keep likely your best 7, if you can avoid injury that should be fine. I get that’s a huge if, I do, but I’m not going to sit here each day panicking about a hypothetical scenario, right now we’ve got a great group of core players which is all you need, and it’s enough, if there’s other developments I’ll dive into them at that point.
6. Tennessee gets to 12-0 on the year, they’re 1 win away from a flawless OOC performance, which is beyond impressive. As I’ve said before, that would set Tennessee up beautifully heading into league play which is likely to be a gauntlet, I’ll dive deeper into seeding and expectations etc, but in a year where the league could get 12+ teams into the field you’re going to be absolutely battle tested each and every night, stacking as many wins as you possibly could OOC was paramount and going a perfect 13-0 would be an absolute best case scenario obviously, 1 more to go.
GBO!!!
