Game Thread: Lady Vols V Carson Newman

[Coach Jumper]

Anybody else think we are missing a point guard?

we have one

Beginning to agree with you all that Horston should be developed as our primary point guard. Start developing her now, because a skilled PG (especially with her combo of height and speed) is so rare in the W.

agree

 

[creekdipper]

We've been thru alot so we're easily frightened.

We are that, fer sure.

 

[Nickid1975]

Game came down offensively to Point Guard position 4 of 18 from the floor. We want be winning much if the point guard position can't give us better efficiency. Post players 6 of 22 was really hard to understand against the small Carson Newman team and has to be considered a real concern for this team. Two guard position was 2 for 9 need more information needed on how this position will contribute for the season not enough shots taken and a few in and outs that could've gone down with better luck. 4 Forward position 7 of 16 McCoy missed some easy shots I really don't see how she can maintain a starting position unless she makes those layups. Three forward 9 of 14 Davis was excellent in this game Burrell came in on fire then started taking some ill advised shots later in the game. As in past seasons the ability for some players to shoot the ball at an efficient level is the biggest concern. I didn't see any improvement out of Massengill as far as shooting the ball. Horston needs to make more effort to finish instead of just throwing up something at the basket. Post and point guard 10 of 40 you could say this is where all the problems were in this game can't get 25 percent out of these two key positions.

I came out of this game thinking we needed Horston and Green at the one and two with Davis and Burrell then pick out a post player of whom I would pick Key. The rebounding in this game wa excellent I didn't see very many second chance shots for Carson Newman. As usual they have players that can make the long three and we sometimes missed getting out on them especially in the third quarter.

I thought the defense was solid gave up 44 this year and 59 last year so we were 15 points better and I think if we had played certain players more Carson Newman doesn't get to thirty. Not much more to take out of this game except you wonder where the offense is gonna come from consistently 70 points on 79 shot attempts is terrible. On that many shots you hope to score 95 at least and 103 would've been terrific efficiency. On to the first game I like the defense looks a lot better than last season expect it will clean up a lot of the few miscommunications we saw last night. Offense concerned because either players can shoot or they can't right now I only see about three players that look dependable shooting the ball.

 

[glv98]

To some extent but I think the distinction also has some implications for expectations. A true rebuilding team would not be expected to compete for an SEC title or a sweet 16 spot. I think those are the reasonable expectations for this year's squad.
Although the preseason rankings are more supportive of your position. I am betting that these team is being seriously undervalued but time will tell.

I believe we've circled back nicely to the potential vs proven talent discussion. We coulda, shoulda, woulda been better last year if only (fill in the blank) we hit a few more easy shots, sustained better defensive effort, weren't pouty and divided, etc, etc.

The actual result on the floor was a mid (at best) to lower level SEC team not sniffing competing for anything. This year we are the same team, just trading a disgruntled, yet to be proven hot shot pg for an inexperienced frosh yet to be proven hot shot pg. Plus trading an experienced over-achieving, undersized post for raw untested ones. Hard to see how that equals competing for top tier. UNLESS you believe, and I pray you're right, there's alot of true greatness being hidden and KJH is a miracle worker.

Before I'm castigated as a miserable nega Vol, I believe my reality-based expectations are way more kind. Slow build over a few seasons and recruiting classes. If we believe this is already an SEC top tier and S16 caliber team, if that doesn't happen do we count KJH first season a disappointment or outright failure? IMO that would be unfair.

 

[Volfan2012]

Defense was fine nothing wrong with the play on that end. Offense can be easily defined to a lot of players giving poor shooting performances and of course if that continues this will not be a top SEC team unless the defense is way above average. Horston 3 of 12, Massengill 1 of 6. McCoy 2 of 8, Rennie 0 of 4, KK 2 of 7, Harris 0 of 2 so these six players combined for 8 of 39 or 21 percent.

The rest of the team was 20 of 40 for 50 percent. So maybe you ask these players not to shoot so much and build the offense around the players that can. Or we need more data to determine exactly how this team will play on offense. I know that Davis, Green, and Burrell seem ready to have great offensive seasons. I don't know what were gonna get from point guard 4 of 18 not gonna get it done. Post 6 of 22 is horrible and these two positions that went 10 for 40 have to get better or certainly we want be in the top of the SEC. I'll need to see more games to determine exactly who we can depend on and how we'll need to play to get enough offense to win games.

 

[NewDog]

Defense was fine nothing wrong with the play on that end. Offense can be easily defined to a lot of players giving poor shooting performances and of course if that continues this will not be a top SEC team unless the defense is way above average. Horston 3 of 12, Massengill 1 of 6. McCoy 2 of 8, Rennie 0 of 4, KK 2 of 7, Harris 0 of 2 so these six players combined for 8 of 39 or 21 percent.

The rest of the team was 20 of 40 for 50 percent. So maybe you ask these players not to shoot so much and build the offense around the players that can. Or we need more data to determine exactly how this team will play on offense. I know that Davis, Green, and Burrell seem ready to have great offensive seasons. I don't know what were gonna get from point guard 4 of 18 not gonna get it done. Post 6 of 22 is horrible and these two positions that went 10 for 40 have to get better or certainly we want be in the top of the SEC. I'll need to see more games to determine exactly who we can depend on and how we'll need to play to get enough offense to win games.

Horston and Rennie are freshmen. And McKoy is a first year at Tennessee player. I would bet they were all a little tight in their first game at TBA. Massengil is just not a good shooter. I'm not sure how much ability she has to improve. Harris won't see much time. She is just not a very good player.r

You hit it on the head with Davis, Green and Burrell. Three talented offensive players. I'm guessing these three are your prime scorers.

It was an exhibition game. As many have said, Harper was experimenting and probably had a pre-ordained minutes distribution and certain combinations she wanted to see out there.

Others have said that Tennessee could have scored a lot more points if they pressed more and that is probably true. However, watching her teams at Missouri State, that was just not her style. Will she change that with the better athletes at Tennessee compared to Missouri State? We shall see.

 

[Volfan2012]

Horston and Rennie are freshmen. And McKoy is a first year at Tennessee player. I would bet they were all a little tight in their first game at TBA. Massengil is just not a good shooter. I'm not sure how much ability she has to improve. Harris won't see much time. She is just not a very good player.r

You hit it on the head with Davis, Green and Burrell. Three talented offensive players. I'm guessing these three are your prime scorers.

It was an exhibition game. As many have said, Harper was experimenting and probably had a pre-ordained minutes distribution and certain combinations she wanted to see out there.

Others have said that Tennessee could have scored a lot more points if they pressed more and that is probably true. However, watching her teams at Missouri State, that was just not her style. Will she change that with the better athletes at Tennessee compared to Missouri State? We shall see.

I agree Horston was missing layups and I don't think they want her shooting threes as she missed all 4 tries from that range. Massengill couldn't shoot last season and again not looking great she may need to be a distributor and not look to score that often. I think you would want to run a lot of plays for Davis, Burrell, and Green plus maybe eventually Key as she looked like the best post option to me. McCoy came down to taking some terrible shots actually throwing the ball at the basket. When she sets collects and shoots looks a lot better. I am thinking our post is where we need to be concerned more than any other position on offense although what they give us on defense looks to be a huge improvement over what we had last season.

 

[Orange Maniac]

Horston's exhibition numbers are an anomaly in my opinion. She is much better than that and will prove it. She missed shots but you could tell from the way she moves, she will be good.

 

[glv98]

Offense can be easily defined to a lot of players giving poor shooting performances and of course if that continues this will not be a top SEC team

This. Is so painfully familiar. That's what has me worried over what, yes, was an exhibition/ experimentation or whatever. Very well could be coincidence that our main basic problem of the last few seasons appeared, against a cupcake opponent, to be unabated. I sure as heck hope so.

I'm looking forward to climbing aboard the sunshine train starting with ETSU and continuing through a few games of organized offense resulting in a sustained ability to hit shots, at least the easy ones.

 

[lvocd]

It was one game of poor shooting, so I’m not worried about it yet. But if by the time the conference schedule gets going there isn’t significant improvement in shooting from 12 feet out and beyond, the team could suffer in post-season.

For the time being at least, and hopefully for this season, I’m choosing to think positively and have faith that things will eventually start to click with this group, and that all the details that the players may be a bit bogged down by now will start to become second nature through repetition.

Kellie has made it clear that she is not going to move past skills and ideas until the players have demonstrated that they understand them and can execute them properly. I suspect that this team may be a bit slower to catch on than she’d like, and I also suspect that she hasn’t gotten nearly as far into her teaching plan as she’d like to be, but I do admire her purposeful approach.

This first season will likely be deemed moderately successful once it’s all over, and that’s pretty much my goal as a fan. As long as they don’t go backward and we can see gradual improvement from Tuesday to the end of the season, we should all be very, very happy.

 

[VolBall09]

I hope Horston adjusts quickly, because I don't think Massengill is an SEC-caliber starting PG. I don't see anything from her that stands out. I'm not sure why she was so highly ranked out of HS given that she can't shoot and isn't a great playmaker.

I’m still very bothered by her inability to hit free-throws. I had the same complaint about Evina and she did actually improve that some last season. You can’t have a primary ball handler that can’t hit free throws though. They have to have the ball in late game situations and it’s too much of a liability. 80+ or bust at that position IMO.

 

[Volfaninfl2]

Defense was fine nothing wrong with the play on that end. Offense can be easily defined to a lot of players giving poor shooting performances and of course if that continues this will not be a top SEC team unless the defense is way above average. Horston 3 of 12, Massengill 1 of 6. McCoy 2 of 8, Rennie 0 of 4, KK 2 of 7, Harris 0 of 2 so these six players combined for 8 of 39 or 21 percent.

The rest of the team was 20 of 40 for 50 percent. So maybe you ask these players not to shoot so much and build the offense around the players that can. Or we need more data to determine exactly how this team will play on offense. I know that Davis, Green, and Burrell seem ready to have great offensive seasons. I don't know what were gonna get from point guard 4 of 18 not gonna get it done. Post 6 of 22 is horrible and these two positions that went 10 for 40 have to get better or certainly we want be in the top of the SEC. I'll need to see more games to determine exactly who we can depend on and how we'll need to play to get enough offense to win games.

Thank you Volfan2012 for your constructive observations and comments.

Luckily, we are not the only ones noticing that Jordan’s stats would look a lot better if she had not missed all 5 of her 3 point shots, and that Jaz made 1 of her 6 shots, plus missed her 2 free throws, and that the posts need work.


From Coach Kellie’s postgame quotes:

I wanted to get a lot of different combinations of film, I wanted to get some statistics from those combinations, and I wanted to have an eyeball test on it and see who looked good together.

I'm not overly concerned about our shooting percentage coming out of this, but I think my biggest concern is the quantity of things I want to correct or the quantity of things I want to improve. I think it's a lot."


For me, I think it’s time to quit complaining about last year. We did that already, and we won that fight. We got a Big Change. This is not the same team, half the players we have now, did not play for the Lady Vols last year. It’s the very beginning of a new era for Lady Vol basketball. How fast we’ll get to the top is unknown, but with our new Coach, I think we’re definitely headed in the right direction. GO LADY VOLS!!!

 

[Amb3096]

I’m still very bothered by her inability to hit free-throws. I had the same complaint about Evina and she did actually improve that some last season. You can’t have a primary ball handler that can’t hit free throws though. They have to have the ball in late game situations and it’s too much of a liability. 80+ or bust at that position IMO.

She can hit free throws, though. I forgot what game it was last year (LSU maybe?) where Evina was out and Massengill played starter minutes, and she sealed the game at the end by being perfect from the FT line in something like 6-6 effort.

My biggest problem with her is that she doesn't seem to control the offensive flow when she's running the point, she's not a gifted passer like Evina was, can't shoot from deep (she's a midrange shooter, and even there she's not consistent enough), and looks lost on defense a lot. It wouldn't be a huge problem if she was playing behind Evina for another year, but I fear that the poor girl will get thrown into the mix out of necessity...and she's just not ready.

 

[Darth_Vol]

She can hit free throws, though. I forgot what game it was last year (LSU maybe?) where Evina was out and Massengill played starter minutes, and she sealed the game at the end by being perfect from the FT line in something like 6-6 effort.

She can hit free throws because she shot them well in one game? You realize she shot 53% for the season right? I realize it was an exhibition, but she played starter minutes in this one and was 0-2 from the line. Her poor free throw shooting over the course last season wasn't an aberration, the game you reference was.

It was very disheartening to see her still throwing up bricks and KK fumbling around in the post. Burrell looks like the only sophomore who worked on her game at all over the offseason...

 

[Darth_Vol]

This LV team should not be a rebuild at all. It is more of re-training season but that process does not happen over night.

I agree. A good coach should be able to finish in the top quarter of the conference and make a reasonable run (sweet 16+) in the tournament with this roster...

 

[Volfan2012]

Horston's exhibition numbers are an anomaly in my opinion. She is much better than that and will prove it. She missed shots but you could tell from the way she moves, she will be good.

That is what we hope and believe. That is why need more games to see how we trend with this offense. I think Kellie will keep working with players to help them determine what is a good shot and a bad shot for them. When a post should try a shot and when they should pass it out of a double or triple team. Most players are better at making shots from certain places on the floor. Some players can't make a shot from anywhere. Your percentage goes up when you take shots you can also make in practice and goes down when you throw up shots you are never good at even in practice. What Kellie has to do as coach is get this team to know mentally what is a good shot for them and one they should avoid. Then you also need your best players to get the highest percentage of the games shots. Davis, Burrell and Green 20 of 40 while the rest of the team 8 for 39. You would probably like to see Davis, Green, and Burrell get their total game shots as a trio up to 75 percent instead of 50 and the rest of the team drop back to 25 percent. Using this game as a model would've meant 30 of 60 and 4 of 19 for an overall 34 of 79 which is a lot better and adds 12 points if everyone actually performed as they had on shots they took with the additional shots. Still a lot more to be determined, but I'm already thinking Massengill shot not looking any better than last season and McCoy has to reel in those slings from a triple team. KK can't get two inches off the ground and get blocked a lot. The three point shot may not be our friend unless Davis or maybe still to be determined Green, Brown, or maybe Rennie are taking them and I know Rennie was 0 for 4 but they were good looking shots. Like you said Horston will be an excellent offensive player if she is using her driving ability and takes the mid range shots in the paint. I don't think the three is gonna be her shot this season. This game only told us that our point guards and post players hit a miserable 10 of 40 that is something that has to improve or they can't take 40 shots in a game.

 

[VolBall09]

She can hit free throws, though. I forgot what game it was last year (LSU maybe?) where Evina was out and Massengill played starter minutes, and she sealed the game at the end by being perfect from the FT line in something like 6-6 effort.

My biggest problem with her is that she doesn't seem to control the offensive flow when she's running the point, she's not a gifted passer like Evina was, can't shoot from deep (she's a midrange shooter, and even there she's not consistent enough), and looks lost on defense a lot. It wouldn't be a huge problem if she was playing behind Evina for another year, but I fear that the poor girl will get thrown into the mix out of necessity...and she's just not ready.

LOL ok.

 

[lvocd]

My biggest problem with her is that she doesn't seem to control the offensive flow when she's running the point, she's not a gifted passer like Evina was, can't shoot from deep (she's a midrange shooter, and even there she's not consistent enough), and looks lost on defense a lot. It wouldn't be a huge problem if she was playing behind Evina for another year, but I fear that the poor girl will get thrown into the mix out of necessity...and she's just not ready.

It's way too soon to judge, but I imagine that Kellie will have to make adjustments to the timing of and the amount of information she feeds the PGs in order to avoid anyone mentally shutting down because of an information overload. My feeling is that Jaz may need a little time to work through everything in her head properly before she can consistently put it into practice on the court. If everything is new and you have the pressure of being in the position your coach says is the most important, then, yeah... that's a lot to deal with effectively right out of the gate.

I'm all for giving Jaz a little time to grow into all the teaching she's getting. Same with Jordan. Horston is an AMAZING athlete, but she's going to need some time to learn and grow -- and how to keep her head up if she makes a mistake.

 

[Amb3096]

She can hit free throws because she shot them well in one game? You realize she shot 53% for the season right? I realize it was an exhibition, but she played starter minutes in this one and was 0-2 from the line. Her poor free throw shooting over the course last season wasn't an aberration, the game you reference was.

It was very disheartening to see her still throwing up bricks and KK fumbling around in the post. Burrell looks like the only sophomore who worked on her game at all over the offseason...

You act like her sample size was high enough to make that call. She only took 30 FTs last season, and in probably 1/3 of the games she played. 5-18 to start the season, 10-12 to finish. Her stroke is fine. I'm guessing she wasn't a 53% FT shooter in HS

 

[Amb3096]

LOL ok.

Very measured and informative response.

 

[VolBall09]

Very measured and informative response.

I’m sorry, I enjoy a good back and forth as much as anyone on here. I’m not going to argue with you about her free throw shooting though. It speaks for itself. 53% is unacceptable at this level. 6 in one game or not.

She’s still shooting with the same poor form as last year. I had hoped to see some improvement, but it looked exactly the same and she got the same result she did 47% of the time last year. A free throw is the second easiest shot in basketball behind an uncontested layup. An inability to hit them consistently significantly reduces her effectiveness in many ways.

 

[Darth_Vol]

You act like her sample size was high enough to make that call. She only took 30 FTs last season, and in probably 1/3 of the games she played. 5-18 to start the season, 10-12 to finish. Her stroke is fine. I'm guessing she wasn't a 53% FT shooter in HS

So you're going to cherry-pick an even smaller sample size and try to extrapolate that as the norm? You're really reaching with this one. I saw nothing in this game to indicate her shooting last season, including free throws, was an aberration...

 

[Volfaninfl2]

Horston's exhibition numbers are an anomaly in my opinion. She is much better than that and will prove it. She missed shots but you could tell from the way she moves, she will be good.

Coach Kellie agrees with you.

On how she would evaluate Jordan Horston's ability to run the point today:

"I think Jordan was definitely a little nervous to start this game, for sure. You know, I think it was good for her to be able to see the game being played for a few minutes before she actually got in there. I think that helped her. She is really good. I know she had a few turnovers and a few missed plays, but her ceiling is really high. We're going to continue to help her and build her. We want her playing with great confidence, because she should play with great confidence. She's going to be an excellent defensive player. A lot of the time you can't say that about freshmen, but she's going to be an excellent defensive player – this year – I'm convinced. And she wants to do it right. She's a perfectionist, so we've just got to keep patting her on the back, because she's going to be something really special."

 

[papatomany]

Just an exhibition game with coaches trying to see what different combinations look like, so nothing to measure anything by, but... anyone thinking the shooting with be much better than what we saw here will be disappointed. Coach Harper's teams are traditionally bad shooting teams.

The last 6 years her teams were 238th, 204th, 177th, 227th, 143rd, and 70th in the country.

 

[Amb3096]

So you're going to cherry-pick an even smaller sample size and try to extrapolate that as the norm? You're really reaching with this one. I saw nothing in this game to indicate her shooting last season, including free throws, was an aberration...

No, I'm saying that there's not a whole lot to go by. She rarely got to the FT line.

Her FG% is a different story. I'm not gonna give her the benefit of a doubt there.