John Adams Predicts Second Elite 8 In Program History For The 2023-2024 Season

#1
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Volfan1000

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In today's edition of the Knoxville News Sentinel.

I think this team could possibly break the Final Four ceiling.

Thoughts from the board?
 
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#2
#2
Volfan1000 said:
In today's edition of the Knoxville News Sentinel.

I think this team could possibly break the Final Four ceiling.

Thoughts from the board?
Click to expand...
We’re going to be damn good. That I know.

If even John Adams is predicting an elite 8, you know expectations are sky high. That guy is usually a wet blanket.
 
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#4
#4
This team has the potential to go that deep for sure. Wish we still had ledlum but clearly he left because he wasn't going to start. We must be very good
 
#5
#5
The only thing that will slow is down is the chemistry of our 2nd rotation guys. Essentially all brand new playing with each other. There’s a huge gap between the veterans and newbies
 
#6
#6
Coming from Adams that is pretty shocking. Regardless so much depends on matchups once you get to the tournament and of course health/is the team intact. Barnes has really been hit with alot of injuries (or other reasons for losing players) during his UT coaching tenure when it matters, almost every year. Kevin Punter, Derek Mostella, Kyle Alexander, John Fulkerson, Lamont Turner, JJJ, Zeigler, etc....

While we have great senior leadership, to me Zeigler is our emotional leader on the court and we need him back 100%. He is fearless and should thrive if we push tempo. Knecht will be our leading scorer and given he has 3 more months to learn nuances of team defense, I think he will be "sufficient" on that end. Vescovi will be our steadiest player and will have more room on the court with other scorers around him. There will be nights when Dilione goes off on the offensive end and could become another "go to guy" when the shot clock starts to run out (along with Knecht), as he looks to be a good 1x1 player. Will a frosh be consistent offensively? Aidoo will start but Awaka may be our most important player. He may be our only true low post guy and owns the glass. JJJ at the 4, Mashack, Gainey, Estrella, and perhaps Jefferson all will have important roles to play. Our starting 5 isn't close to the 2018-2019 team but we are significantly deeper this year.
 
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#7
#7
Namorto1 said:
Coming from Adams that is pretty shocking. Regardless so much depends on matchups once you get to the tournament and of course health/is the team intact. Barnes has really been hit with alot of injuries (or other reasons for losing players) during his UT coaching tenure when it matters, almost every year. Kevin Punter, Derek Mostella, Kyle Alexander, John Fulkerson, Lamont Turner, JJJ, Zeigler, etc....

While we have great senior leadership, to me Zeigler is our emotional leader on the court and we need him back 100%. He is fearless and should thrive if we push tempo. Knecht will be our leading scorer and given he has 3 more months to learn nuances of team defense, I think he will be "sufficient" on that end. Vescovi will be our steadiest player and will have more room on the court with other scorers around him. There will be nights when Dilione goes off on the offensive end and could become another "go to guy" when the shot clock starts to run out (along with Knecht), as he looks to be a good 1x1 player. Will a frosh be consistent offensively? Aidoo will start but Awaka may be our most important player. He may be our only true low post guy and owns the glass. JJJ at the 4, Mashack, Gainey, Estrella, and perhaps Jefferson all will have important roles to play. Our starting 5 isn't close to the 2018-2019 team but we are significantly deeper this year.
Click to expand...
This is no shot at Knecht, and I might be wrong, but I’ll be surprised if he’s our leading scorer next year. His shot looks nice, but I don’t know if he’ll get the same kind of volume as he did in Europe during the season. Those Lithuanians were guarding him like he had the plague or something, just left him all alone in the corners.
 
#11
#11
Welp, old Adams has predicted another CWS run for the baseball team and now an Elite 8 for the Basketvols.
Think he'll pick the gridiron team to the National Championship game.
He must be needing some clicks..
 
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#13
#13
DuckInAPen said:
I'm extremely optimistic about the upcoming season, but I don't think any team in contemporary college basketball can claim an Elite 8 as its floor in the NCAA tournament.
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Yes exactly. Going into last year I'm sure some thought Purdue and Arizona's floor was the Elite 8, yet they lost to 15 & 16 seeds in the first round. You just never know in March. Used to you could pretty much punch an Elite 8 ticket being a number 1 seed, but last year Kansas lost to an 8 seed. Two number 1 seeds didn't even make the Sweet 16 and none made it to the Final 4.
 
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#14
#14
We have an INSANE November to circumvent. A little early for these kinds of predictions. but that's just me.
 
#16
#16
It would be awesome to make the Elite 8. Obviously, it's is well outside the realm of reason to realistically predict that level of success at this point.

I'm sure our defense will be great, as it usually is; we need to be better offensively. I'm fairly concerned about Vescovi. He has been pretty inconsistent as an upperclassmen. I think if the rest of the team can actually provide some notable scoring power, his efficiency will definitely improve.

In any case, I think we're in better shape at this point than we were at the same time last year. If the new guys can provide good quality offensive firepower (and assuming our defense is as good as it usually is), then we will probably be able to pass the 25-win mark without too much drama. As far as the tournament goes, we will need to be more focused and, for the love of all things holy, not play down to our competition if we get a favorable draw or two. I can live with an earlier than expected loss in the tournament as long as we don't embarrass ourselves.

I really really want at least a top-3 SEC finish, hopefully make it to at least the Sweet 16, and I personally do not care what happens in the SEC tournament (but I will be stoked if we wind up winning it haha).
 
#17
#17
Chris4Vols22 said:
It would be awesome to make the Elite 8. Obviously, it's is well outside the realm of reason to realistically predict that level of success at this point.

I'm sure our defense will be great, as it usually is; we need to be better offensively. I'm fairly concerned about Vescovi. He has been pretty inconsistent as an upperclassmen. I think if the rest of the team can actually provide some notable scoring power, his efficiency will definitely improve.
Click to expand...
Was this meant to be blue font? He’s one of the most consistent upperclassmen we’ve had in recent memory imo
 
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#18
#18
bleedingTNorange said:
Was this meant to be blue font? He’s one of the most consistent upperclassmen we’ve had in recent memory imo
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He's overall inconsistent in scoring, that's all I was trying to say. If you look his stat lines from each game last season and conclude he's a consistent scorer, then agree to disagree on that point. He was indeed consistent his junior season, so I was mistaken on the "upperclassmen" point. He obviously does many other things aside from scoring, and he's definitely a really good player and one of our best in recent memory. I was also trying to say I think his scoring inconsistency was magnified due to the lack of support from the rest of the roster.
 
#19
#19
Chris4Vols22 said:
He's overall inconsistent in scoring, that's all I was trying to say. If you look his stat lines from each game last season and conclude he's a consistent scorer, then agree to disagree on that point. He was indeed consistent his junior season, so I was mistaken on the "upperclassmen" point. He obviously does many other things aside from scoring, and he's definitely a really good player and one of our best in recent memory. I was also trying to say I think his scoring inconsistency was magnified due to the lack of support from the rest of the roster.
Click to expand...
He was double digits in 67% of games last year, I honestly don’t know the answer but I’m guessing that was a team best?
 
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#21
#21
bleedingTNorange said:
He was double digits in 67% of games last year, I honestly don’t know the answer but I’m guessing that was a team best?
Click to expand...
I can tell you without looking that he was the most consistent, and that's saying more about the rest of the roster than Vescovi. I'll take junior Santi over senior 100% of the time, however.
 
#22
#22
I think that Vescovi last year was up and down on offense depending on what others could produce to draw the defensive focus away from him. You never knew if the opponent was going to make ORN, JP, JJJ, Key, and ZZ non factors. If those around SV are threats to light up the scoreboard then Santi should thrive.
 
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#23
#23
Chris4Vols22 said:
I can tell you without looking that he was the most consistent, and that's saying more about the rest of the roster than Vescovi. I'll take junior Santi over senior 100% of the time, however.
Click to expand...
I have zero way to compare that to national average, but for him to be the best on a Top 10-15 team on the surface would suggest to me that nationally he probably would be up in a pretty high percentile. And not disagreeing about junior year better than senior, that was my contention immediately was the upperclassmen claim, my thing is that even as a senior he’s still much more consistent as a scorer than probably 95% of the country.
 
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#24
#24
bleedingTNorange said:
I have zero way to compare that to national average, but for him to be the best on a Top 10-15 team on the surface would suggest to me that nationally he probably would be up in a pretty high percentile. And not disagreeing about junior year better than senior, that was my contention immediately was the upperclassmen claim, my thing is that even as a senior he’s still much more consistent as a scorer than probably 95% of the country.
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Top 5% sounds definitively too high to me, but like you said, very difficult to verify. If you're saying he was top 5% his senior year, what's your estimate for his junior season?
 
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Chris4Vols22 said:
Top 5% sounds definitively too high to me, but like you said, very difficult to verify. If you're saying he was top 5% his senior year, what's your estimate for his junior season?
Click to expand...
Probably Top 98%+…for starters out of over 5k+ basketball players how many averaged even double figures, that alone already shrinks that pool waaaaay down.

Maybe it’s 90%, or 85%, idk, but again…pointing him out as being an inconsistent scorer as an upperclassman seems like an incredibly harsh (and false) take.
 
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