Official Game Thread: #9 Tennessee at #4 Michigan State (3:30 BTN)

#453
#453
Shooting 51% from FG, 52.4% from 3pt FG hopefully is not a fluke. We do this during the season and we will win most of our games. Too many turnovers but without our starting backcourt playing against a legit Top 5 team, on the road, no one can complain about that. Knecht is a player. Beside scoring he grabbed 7 boards and had 4 assists. I do want to use our depth more however. Had 3 guys over 30 minutes and 2 right at 29.
 
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#454
#454
Namorto1 said:
Shooting 51% from FG, 52.4% from 3pt FG hopefully is not a fluke. We do this during the season and we will win most of our games. Too many turnovers but without our starting backcourt playing against a legit Top 5 team, on the road, no one can complain about that. Knecht is a player. Beside scoring he grabbed 7 boards and had 4 assists. I do want to use our depth more however. Had 3 guys over 30 minutes and 2 right at 29.
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I don’t think the plan was to have anyone over 30 minutes, but the young guys just weren’t ready for the intensity of that game.
 
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#455
#455
Freak said:
Tobe Awaka


THE MATCHUP
• Tennessee is 2-5 all-time against Michigan State. The sides have met just once since 1994, a 70-69 win for the Spartans on 3/28/10 in the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight in St. Louis, Mo.
• The Spartans, ranked fourth nationally in both preseason polls, are coming off a 21-13 (11-8 B1G) campaign that included a trip to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. Michigan State was picked second in the Big Ten preseason poll.
• Michigan State returns five of its top six scorers from last season, including graduate student guard Tyson Walker, who paced the team with 14.8 points per game.
• Michigan State graduate student forward Malik Hall is a alumnus of Sunrise Christian Academy (Kan.), where one of his coaches for two seasons was current Tennessee assistant Rod Clark.
• The Vols will be without two- time First Team All-SEC honoree Santiago Vescovi, who is at home in Uruguay for a family matter.
• UT guard Josiah-Jordan James is the son of Kurt James, a Michigan State forward from 1979-82.

LAYING FOR A CAUSE
• This exhibition contest between the Volunteers and Spartans will raise money for the Hawai'i Community Foundation Maui Strong Fund, providing financial resources to the relief efforts from the devastating Maui wildfires.
• Tennessee will play in the Maui Invitational this season and has previously done so thrice (2004, 2011, 2016). This will be the sixth time head coach Rick Barnes takes a team to the tournament, including the second at Tennessee.
• Michigan State has been to the Maui Invitational five times (1991, 1995, 2005, 2010, 2019). Head coach Tom Izzo has competed in the tournament four times, including making his coaching debut there in 1995, and will take the Spartans back in 2024.
• This is the second straight season UT begins play with a charity exhibition against a top-five team. Last year, No. 11 Tennessee downed second-ranked Gonzaga, 99-80, in the inaugural Legends of Basketball Classic at the Comerica Center in Frisco, Texas, benefitting the McLendon Foundation.

COACHING ICONS
• Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes (27) and Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo (25) rank first and second, respectively, in NCAA Tournament appearances among active DI coaches. The two own a combined 1,466 career victories, as Barnes (779) ranks third among active DI coaches and Izzo (687) is No. 10. In addtion, Barnes (23) and Izzo (22) placed co-fifth and eighth, respectively, in career DI 20-win seasons among active coaches.
• Barnes and Izzo squared off eight times during Barnes' tenure at Texas, with each team winning four times. The most recent meeting came on 12/21/13, with Michigan State notching a 92-78 road victory over the Longhorns.
• The eight matchups between Barnes and Izzo came in six different locations. They met twice each in Austin, Texas, and East Lansing, Mich. They also played in Houston, New York, San Antonio and San Juan, P.R.
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Cool fact about JJJ being related to a former MSU basketball player.
 
#456
#456
i know this has nothing to do with the game, nor does it probably matter but St. John’s lost to pace.
 
#458
#458
Great game. If it were played on a neutral court, we win by 10.

Go VOLS
 
#461
#461
Namorto1 said:
Shooting 51% from FG, 52.4% from 3pt FG hopefully is not a fluke. We do this during the season and we will win most of our games. Too many turnovers but without our starting backcourt playing against a legit Top 5 team, on the road, no one can complain about that. Knecht is a player. Beside scoring he grabbed 7 boards and had 4 assists. I do want to use our depth more however. Had 3 guys over 30 minutes and 2 right at 29.
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I will defer to Barnes and his coaches. We played 10 guys despite Vescovi and Ziegler never seeing the court
 
#462
#462
BernardKingGOAT said:
You're bitching unnecessarily while ignoring this team. We are DEEP. JJJ will help this team a hell of a lot more than he hurts it. I'm glad we have him. Yes, offensively, he has never been aggressive as we would like, but he's always played great defense and generally makes good decisions on the court. Damn
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Did I say the team was weak?
 
#465
#465
Kind of funny reading MSU's board and seeing all the mental gymnastics they are doing to give then a pretend moral victory.

- We were on the road against a top 5 team in a full stadium.
- We were missing 2 key key contributors/starters
- The first 5 minutes still count and shouldn't be overlooked considering we entered your house and punked you at the start
- Most of the game we had a free throw and foul disadvantage.
- The refs knocked off a Mashack layup for a charge call that should have been an obvious blocking call.
- The foul rules were known at the start of the match. They had a guy with 7 fouls just like Mashack.
 
#466
#466
I’m having a really hard time keeping my excitement at a reasonable level after Knecht’s performance. If we saw the real player he is today, he will could be the best that’s come through here in a while! Or, we may have seen a flash in the pan. But putting up that performance against an Izzo team, even in exhibition, was inspiring.
 
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#467
#467
Dr H Lecter said:
I’m having a really hard time keeping my excitement at a reasonable level after Knect’s performance. If we saw the real player he is today, he will could be the best that’s come through here in a while! Or, we may have seen a flash in the pan. But putting up that performance against an Izzo team, even in exhibition, was inspiring.
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It’s obvious. Larry Baby Byrd.
 
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#470
#470
TheMookieMonster said:
We didn’t close well or handle the pressure well down the stretch, but I think that is an issue that can be solved with Vescovi and ZZ returning.
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Oh yeah, I agree, but we played just well enough to win in a hostile environment against the #4 team in the country, even without 'em
 
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