BTO’s Tennessee Tech Postgame Report

[bleedingTNorange]

1. Sorry for the delay, wasn’t able to pay close attention live and wanted to watch the game on replay before doing a summary. It’s weird to win that one by nearly 40 and come away feeling a little bit underwhelmed, maybe that’s the expectations this team has created, which fair or not are extremely high. Nevertheless, that’s what you want in those games, cover the spread/analytics projections, never in doubt, stay healthy and get young guys some PT…mission accomplished!

2. Offense started a bit slow which admittedly I didn’t expect but in retrospect probably makes some sense…Vescovi had been gone about the last 10 days, Zeigler first game appearance, some guys a bit under the weather etc. With that said, they scored 4 in the first 6 minutes and then 76 in the next 34 minutes, so they got things going. I don’t think there will be many nights that Vescovi & Knecht combine to go 2-10 from deep, at least I hope not, but it’s a testament to this team that they still ended up at 40% from 3 on the game and broke 80.

3. Gainey & JJJ deserve a ton of credit, as well as Knecht also showing he can do more than shoot 3’s for it still being a “plus” offensive showing. Gainey & Knecht continue to impress and show that they aren’t going anywhere, each performance gives more and more confidence that their offensive game is here to stay…JJJ continues to fill his role beautifully, can’t expect him to go 4-5 from 3 every night but he continues to take good/high quality shots and is playing really well to start the year. Being able to sit back and be a 4/5/6 type option offensively looks like it will be a great thing for him, if he can be a 40% type 3pt shooter for us while also doing the things he always has (7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 3 steals) and playing great defense, he’s going to hopefully win over a lot of Vol fans who have bashed him.

4. Rebounding has been my biggest concern with this team, specifically how it’s playing too given it’s small ball heavy, and we didn’t dominate the boards. We weren’t bad, 42-31, but against a team like that you’d hope for a little better effort. MSU outrebounded us 38-31, which isn’t shocking, but again it will be something that I keep an eye on. I don’t think there’s any question that our best lineups are small ball, but Rick won’t play those groupings if we are getting beat on the boards, will be something to watch imo.

5. Most analytic projections have us 22-7, missing 2 Maui games as those opponents are undecided, considering they’re very likely 2 games against Top 15 teams you can assume 1-1 would be a likely projection, so 23-8 would be a likely analytical projection for the season. That’s also the record I predicted preseason, in the prediction thread there was more optimism as there often is from fans and quite a few 24-7 predictions, ~70% of fans had the team 24-7 or worse…so big picture 23-8/24-7 seems like a good goal for this team, would likely have us in the conversation for a 1/2 seed entering the conference tournament. 1-0 is a good start to that goal and huge opportunity Friday, Tennessee will very likely be a slight underdog and this is one of those tossup games, winning this one would go a long way to reaching that goal or getting ahead of pace even!




GBO!!!

 

[MoCo_Vol]

I'll say ZZ and Santi not having great nights kind of contributes to feeling underwhelmed, at least for me. I think Barnes is being very intentional in playing more guys and spreading minutes since there are so many new faces available. At this point I think you can only feel certain that Aidoo and Santi will be starting every night they are healthy.

Gainey and DK are going to be hard to keep out of the starting lineup imo, especially Gainey since he plays defense at the high level Barnes expects already.

I agree though that rebounding is going to be an area we have to see tons of effort since we won't have a size advantage most nights. Will be interesting to see how the minutes even out as the season goes on. I'm pretty excited to see Cade playing as hard as he is, I was a bit worried he could be a guy that NEEDS to RS, but so far I think he could be a guy that finds quality minutes off the bench for his size and rebounding. He was crashing to defend the rim really well.

My other concern is frontcourt scoring. We had 10 points & 13 rebounds combined for the 4 players that saw minutes, really need to see more production from that group.

 

[b_gann]

I'll say ZZ and Santi not having great nights kind of contributes to feeling underwhelmed, at least for me. I think Barnes is being very intentional in playing more guys and spreading minutes since there are so many new faces available. At this point I think you can only feel certain that Aidoo and Santi will be starting every night they are healthy.

Gainey and DK are going to be hard to keep out of the starting lineup imo, especially Gainey since he plays defense at the high level Barnes expects already.

I agree though that rebounding is going to be an area we have to see tons of effort since we won't have a size advantage most nights. Will be interesting to see how the minutes even out as the season goes on. I'm pretty excited to see Cade playing as hard as he is, I was a bit worried he could be a guy that NEEDS to RS, but so far I think he could be a guy that finds quality minutes off the bench for his size and rebounding. He was crashing to defend the rim really well.

My other concern is frontcourt scoring. We had 10 points & 13 rebounds combined for the 4 players that saw minutes, really need to see more production from that group.

It'll test Rick for sure. He's huge on rebounding. I'm hopeful since we are starting small at the start of the year that we'll stay that way, but it's worth monitoring.

 

[Halph66]

I came away impressed by the amount of talent this team has. I have not seen a Tennessee team that had the number of talented players that this team does. Typically, there are 7-8 quality players and then a sharp drop off. There were some good athletes that played last night. Hamer said many times that there is very little drop off when there was a wholesale substitution of five players. GBO!

 

[MoCo_Vol]

We got 13 guys on scholarship, and I truly believe you could win 20 games in the SEC with any 5 of them playing 25+ minutes a night...for sure the deepest team we've seen under Barnes.

But it's just 1 game (really 3) in at this point... gotta see how we're playing once we start league play.

 

[TMvol10]

Seems like, once again, we are going to rely heavily on the outside shot. Not much going downhill to the basket last night against a team we should be able to do that against. Little to no inside game as well. I hope I’m wrong and we get some stuff closer in to the basket as the year goes on

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Perhaps rebounding and front court scoring is why Barnes is going to work Phillips into the rotation as a contributor this year rather than to redshirt him. Obviously Estrella has the size to warrant playing time as a freshman. Although DJ is listed as a ‘G’ rather than a ‘F’ on the roster, I’ve mentioned it a couple of times that I think he has an opportunity to help out down low this year as well.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Seems like, once again, we are going to rely heavily on the outside shot. Not much going downhill to the basket last night against a team we should be able to do that against. Little to no inside game as well. I hope I’m wrong and we get some stuff closer in to the basket as the year goes on

At least Knecht looks like he can actually finish at the rim. We’ve had several players over the last several years that were very good at getting to the rim, but deficient at being able to get the basket. SV. ZZ. Kennedy. Turner.

 

[scottchatt]

10/10 from the line was definitely a bright spot.

The two 4 min scoring droughts, not so much.

I think we finally have the firepower to force some other teams to go smaller. You have 5 guys who have hit 50+ 3’s in a season on this team. Hopefully forcing other teams to go smaller to cover your shooters will help with rebounding. It’s definitely an area to watch, and there aren’t a lot of available answers to more size inside.

 

[CAVPUT]

Perhaps rebounding and front court scoring is why Barnes is going to work Phillips into the rotation as a contributor this year rather than to redshirt him. Obviously Estrella has the size to warrant playing time as a freshman. Although DJ is listed as a ‘G’ rather than a ‘F’ on the roster, I’ve mentioned it a couple of times that I think he has an opportunity to help out down low this year as well.

Don't know anything about Wisconsin, but I suspect they'll have a couple of good sized corn-fed white boys in the post who will hit the boards and mash on an opponent every chance they get. Should be an interesting test early in the season.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Don't know anything about Wisconsin, but I suspect they'll have a couple of good sized corn-fed white boys in the post who will hit the boards and mash on an opponent every chance they get. Should be an interesting test early in the season.

We’ll lose to Wisconsin if we rely on the 2 freshmen posts. Hoping they’ll develop enough to help close out the SEC regular season and the tournaments.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

10/10 from the line was definitely a bright spot.

The two 4 min scoring droughts, not so much.

I think we finally have the firepower to force some other teams to go smaller. You have 5 guys who have hit 50+ 3’s in a season on this team. Hopefully forcing other teams to go smaller to cover your shooters will help with rebounding. It’s definitely an area to watch, and there aren’t a lot of available answers to more size inside.

We always see how many minutes pass during these scoring droughts, but I’d like to see the number of possessions incorporated into that stat. When UT plays lock down defense they might only have one scoring opportunity available per minute.

 

[Volfan1000]

1. Sorry for the delay, wasn’t able to pay close attention live and wanted to watch the game on replay before doing a summary. It’s weird to win that one by nearly 40 and come away feeling a little bit underwhelmed, maybe that’s the expectations this team has created, which fair or not are extremely high. Nevertheless, that’s what you want in those games, cover the spread/analytics projections, never in doubt, stay healthy and get young guys some PT…mission accomplished!

2. Offense started a bit slow which admittedly I didn’t expect but in retrospect probably makes some sense…Vescovi had been gone about the last 10 days, Zeigler first game appearance, some guys a bit under the weather etc. With that said, they scored 4 in the first 6 minutes and then 76 in the next 34 minutes, so they got things going. I don’t think there will be many nights that Vescovi & Knecht combine to go 2-10 from deep, at least I hope not, but it’s a testament to this team that they still ended up at 40% from 3 on the game and broke 80.

3. Gainey & JJJ deserve a ton of credit, as well as Knecht also showing he can do more than shoot 3’s for it still being a “plus” offensive showing. Gainey & Knecht continue to impress and show that they aren’t going anywhere, each performance gives more and more confidence that their offensive game is here to stay…JJJ continues to fill his role beautifully, can’t expect him to go 4-5 from 3 every night but he continues to take good/high quality shots and is playing really well to start the year. Being able to sit back and be a 4/5/6 type option offensively looks like it will be a great thing for him, if he can be a 40% type 3pt shooter for us while also doing the things he always has (7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 3 steals) and playing great defense, he’s going to hopefully win over a lot of Vol fans who have bashed him.

4. Rebounding has been my biggest concern with this team, specifically how it’s playing too given it’s small ball heavy, and we didn’t dominate the boards. We weren’t bad, 42-31, but against a team like that you’d hope for a little better effort. MSU outrebounded us 38-31, which isn’t shocking, but again it will be something that I keep an eye on. I don’t think there’s any question that our best lineups are small ball, but Rick won’t play those groupings if we are getting beat on the boards, will be something to watch imo.

5. Most analytic projections have us 22-7, missing 2 Maui games as those opponents are undecided, considering they’re very likely 2 games against Top 15 teams you can assume 1-1 would be a likely projection, so 23-8 would be a likely analytical projection for the season. That’s also the record I predicted preseason, in the prediction thread there was more optimism as there often is from fans and quite a few 24-7 predictions, ~70% of fans had the team 24-7 or worse…so big picture 23-8/24-7 seems like a good goal for this team, would likely have us in the conversation for a 1/2 seed entering the conference tournament. 1-0 is a good start to that goal and huge opportunity Friday, Tennessee will very likely be a slight underdog and this is one of those tossup games, winning this one would go a long way to reaching that goal or getting ahead of pace even!




GBO!!!

I think that Estrella might get some more minutes if Tennessee continues to have rebounding issues and I expect Aidoo and Awaka to pick up the pace as far as grabbing rebounds.

Gainey and Knecht are pure three point shooters.

James is a Swiss Army Knife who will do the dirty work on the floor and any offense that he provides will be a bonus this season.

Vescovi will have the most open looks from three point land that he has ever had at Tennessee with the additions of Gainey and Knecht and Dillone will help take some point guard pressure off Seigler.

 

[CAVPUT]

We’ll lose to Wisconsin if we rely on the 2 freshmen posts. Hoping they’ll develop enough to help close out the SEC regular season and the tournaments.

Last I heard Aidoo returned so he might be okay? Awaka was battling illness so that might be a problem. Regardless, I agree. Never a good thing to have a reliance on freshmen at this level.

 

[VOLED]

3. Gainey & JJJ deserve a ton of credit, as well as Knecht also showing he can do more than shoot 3’s for it still being a “plus” offensive showing. Gainey & Knecht continue to impress and show that they aren’t going anywhere, each performance gives more and more confidence that their offensive game is here to stay…JJJ continues to fill his role beautifully, can’t expect him to go 4-5 from 3 every night but he continues to take good/high quality shots and is playing really well to start the year. Being able to sit back and be a 4/5/6 type option offensively looks like it will be a great thing for him, if he can be a 40% type 3pt shooter for us while also doing the things he always has (7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 3 steals) and playing great defense, he’s going to hopefully win over a lot of Vol fans who have bashed him.

All your other points are good, but #3 is a great thing to see. So impressed with Gainey and Knecht as total basketball players that can take us to another level. I assumed Knecht would be good, but Gainey is going to be taking away minutes from some very good players. Great to see JJJ healthy.

 

[SN-A-C Orange]

1. Sorry for the delay, wasn’t able to pay close attention live and wanted to watch the game on replay before doing a summary. It’s weird to win that one by nearly 40 and come away feeling a little bit underwhelmed, maybe that’s the expectations this team has created, which fair or not are extremely high. Nevertheless, that’s what you want in those games, cover the spread/analytics projections, never in doubt, stay healthy and get young guys some PT…mission accomplished!

2. Offense started a bit slow which admittedly I didn’t expect but in retrospect probably makes some sense…Vescovi had been gone about the last 10 days, Zeigler first game appearance, some guys a bit under the weather etc. With that said, they scored 4 in the first 6 minutes and then 76 in the next 34 minutes, so they got things going. I don’t think there will be many nights that Vescovi & Knecht combine to go 2-10 from deep, at least I hope not, but it’s a testament to this team that they still ended up at 40% from 3 on the game and broke 80.

3. Gainey & JJJ deserve a ton of credit, as well as Knecht also showing he can do more than shoot 3’s for it still being a “plus” offensive showing. Gainey & Knecht continue to impress and show that they aren’t going anywhere, each performance gives more and more confidence that their offensive game is here to stay…JJJ continues to fill his role beautifully, can’t expect him to go 4-5 from 3 every night but he continues to take good/high quality shots and is playing really well to start the year. Being able to sit back and be a 4/5/6 type option offensively looks like it will be a great thing for him, if he can be a 40% type 3pt shooter for us while also doing the things he always has (7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 3 steals) and playing great defense, he’s going to hopefully win over a lot of Vol fans who have bashed him.

4. Rebounding has been my biggest concern with this team, specifically how it’s playing too given it’s small ball heavy, and we didn’t dominate the boards. We weren’t bad, 42-31, but against a team like that you’d hope for a little better effort. MSU outrebounded us 38-31, which isn’t shocking, but again it will be something that I keep an eye on. I don’t think there’s any question that our best lineups are small ball, but Rick won’t play those groupings if we are getting beat on the boards, will be something to watch imo.

5. Most analytic projections have us 22-7, missing 2 Maui games as those opponents are undecided, considering they’re very likely 2 games against Top 15 teams you can assume 1-1 would be a likely projection, so 23-8 would be a likely analytical projection for the season. That’s also the record I predicted preseason, in the prediction thread there was more optimism as there often is from fans and quite a few 24-7 predictions, ~70% of fans had the team 24-7 or worse…so big picture 23-8/24-7 seems like a good goal for this team, would likely have us in the conversation for a 1/2 seed entering the conference tournament. 1-0 is a good start to that goal and huge opportunity Friday, Tennessee will very likely be a slight underdog and this is one of those tossup games, winning this one would go a long way to reaching that goal or getting ahead of pace even!




GBO!!!

Great writeup! Nicely done. It was worth the wait!
I missed the season prognostication page so ... I'll drop my optimistic prediction of 25-6!
Not worried about Tobe's contribution when healthy. I think there is a chance he might end up more productive offensively than Aidoo minus 3 point shots.
The best news is ... we did not look good (SV was off his game, Tobe was sick (but gutted out 9 minutes) and we put 16 guys on the floor ... even if you erase the cleanup minute guys, we still played 12!!!!!)
As weak as the inside scoring seemed ... we still scored 30 points in the paint!!!
What I am watching:
How many guys get on the floor at Wisconsin ... I am 'betting' on 12.
How long before the other team's best defensive guy moves over to take Knecht out of the game.
Fast break points.

 

[ArdentVol]

1. Sorry for the delay, wasn’t able to pay close attention live and wanted to watch the game on replay before doing a summary. It’s weird to win that one by nearly 40 and come away feeling a little bit underwhelmed, maybe that’s the expectations this team has created, which fair or not are extremely high. Nevertheless, that’s what you want in those games, cover the spread/analytics projections, never in doubt, stay healthy and get young guys some PT…mission accomplished!

so very true

 

[cardvolfan]

An interesting note: Wisconsin scored 105 points last night. Maybe we will have some offense from both teams Friday.

 

[ColinS]

Seems like, once again, we are going to rely heavily on the outside shot. Not much going downhill to the basket last night against a team we should be able to do that against. Little to no inside game as well. I hope I’m wrong and we get some stuff closer in to the basket as the year goes on

I made a comment about nothing going downhill or to the basket and got hammered by the never say anything negative crowd on here. It was very alarming how little the ball went to the rim against a team like Tennessee Tech. This definitely will have to be addressed or the long scoring droughts are gonna be a problem again.

 

[i2amavol]

I came away impressed by the amount of talent this team has. I have not seen a Tennessee team that had the number of talented players that this team does. Typically, there are 7-8 quality players and then a sharp drop off. There were some good athletes that played last night. Hamer said many times that there is very little drop off when there was a wholesale substitution of five players. GBO!

I think the 7 or 8 quality players was in a good year, not the historical average.

 

[docholiday]

An interesting note: Wisconsin scored 105 points last night. Maybe we will have some offense from both teams Friday.

Arky St. couldn't guard a water cooler.

 

[cncchris33]

I made a comment about nothing going downhill or to the basket and got hammered by the never say anything negative crowd on here. It was very alarming how little the ball went to the rim against a team like Tennessee Tech. This definitely will have to be addressed or the long scoring droughts are gonna be a problem again.

Vescovi’s only basket was going to the rim. Knecht had a basket going to the rim in transition, another on a lob, a reverse layup, and an and-1. Gainey had one going to the rim. Dilione had an and-1 at the rim. ZZ had a bucket at the rim, I think. Phillips had one on an out-of bounds play finish at the rim.

That's just off the top of my head. 9 of our 29 baskets.

We made plays going toward the basket.

 

[scottchatt]

We always see how many minutes pass during these scoring droughts, but I’d like to see the number of possessions incorporated into that stat. When UT plays lock down defense they might only have one scoring opportunity available per minute.

That’s a really solid point.

I was at the game, it was definitely several empty trips. If I have time I’ll go back and count them. Adding to your point, there weren’t any huge point runs from TTU during those times, I’m just afraid that’s more a function of the opponent’s offense not being an even close match for our defense.

We’re going to know a lot more Friday night, but this team looks very good so far.

 

[njvols]

I came away impressed by the amount of talent this team has. I have not seen a Tennessee team that had the number of talented players that this team does. Typically, there are 7-8 quality players and then a sharp drop off. There were some good athletes that played last night. Hamer said many times that there is very little drop off when there was a wholesale substitution of five players. GBO!

Agree. Think we legit have a 10 player rotation.

 

[TrumpedUpVol]

Wrong thread, sorry.