StepCross
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- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
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1. First game I've made it to this year (I live out of town). Imagine my surprise when I saw snow on the way in.
2. As hatvol said, it was a fun one despite the slim crowd.
3. Embarrassingly, all I could think about during the entire pregame wait was, "will Memphis stay out for the anthem?" They did, FWIW.
4. Tennessee appeared to be "back" today, especially on offense. They looked more deliberate, more intentional, more patient, more gathered. MUCH MUCH better distributing the basketball. They got GREAT looks for each other, and that's one thing that's been missing.
5. BUT. I was not sold on our defense. My wife said, "why are they getting into the paint so easily against us?" I responded, "I think you've discovered the cause of the 6-game skid."
6. (to be fair, Jackson is REALLY quick.)
7. BUT #2. We hit our shots. OK, so we're top-5 when the shots go in...what about when they don't? We can't be top-whatever when we're hitting, and bottom 150 when we're not!
8. The tighter rotation looks much, much better. Second team is Golden, McBee, Bone, Maymon, Fields. Golden, Bone, Maymon, and Fields are solid players. Golden, Bone, and Maymon are legitimate scoring threats. It's not the starting five by any stretch, but no longer does it look like "OMG, where are the points gonna come from."
9. And Maymon deserves his own mention. He looked good tonight, albeit against a skinny-arsed memphis team that he could kinda push around. He's getting more comfortable, and can help us.
10. Everyone is touting the 3-point shooting, and that helps. But to me, it looks like when Mel and Brian show up, we're good. When either of them doesn't, we're in trouble. I'm not seeing tons of variation in Scotty, Cam, and Tobias. Scotty and Tobias are always better than the guy guarding them, pretty much. It's PG and C where we're getting wild fluctuations. JMO.
11. Memphis is too skinny. They can't guard except for shot-blocking, they can't rebound, they don't appear to play with discipline. They don't have a guy that can create his own shots from what I see, and they don't play in a structured offensive system that creates shots for them. I just wasn't impressed. But they are, of course, better than Martin, so Tennessee is definitely showing signs of life again no matter how weak Memphis is or isn't this year.
12. Last one. I loved that Tennessee shot the 3 with confidence tonight. It's easy to get scared of the thing when they're not going in, and they haven't been going in for a long time now. We shot it like we just played Pitt yesterday, instead of like we haven't hit a 3 since before we started Christmas shopping. Doubt we can count on Melvin staying lights-out all season, but Bone and Hopson should stay reliable (actually Hopson sneaked out of the slump a couple games ago, I think). Could use Cam's shot back soon.
2. As hatvol said, it was a fun one despite the slim crowd.
3. Embarrassingly, all I could think about during the entire pregame wait was, "will Memphis stay out for the anthem?" They did, FWIW.
4. Tennessee appeared to be "back" today, especially on offense. They looked more deliberate, more intentional, more patient, more gathered. MUCH MUCH better distributing the basketball. They got GREAT looks for each other, and that's one thing that's been missing.
5. BUT. I was not sold on our defense. My wife said, "why are they getting into the paint so easily against us?" I responded, "I think you've discovered the cause of the 6-game skid."
6. (to be fair, Jackson is REALLY quick.)
7. BUT #2. We hit our shots. OK, so we're top-5 when the shots go in...what about when they don't? We can't be top-whatever when we're hitting, and bottom 150 when we're not!
8. The tighter rotation looks much, much better. Second team is Golden, McBee, Bone, Maymon, Fields. Golden, Bone, Maymon, and Fields are solid players. Golden, Bone, and Maymon are legitimate scoring threats. It's not the starting five by any stretch, but no longer does it look like "OMG, where are the points gonna come from."
9. And Maymon deserves his own mention. He looked good tonight, albeit against a skinny-arsed memphis team that he could kinda push around. He's getting more comfortable, and can help us.
10. Everyone is touting the 3-point shooting, and that helps. But to me, it looks like when Mel and Brian show up, we're good. When either of them doesn't, we're in trouble. I'm not seeing tons of variation in Scotty, Cam, and Tobias. Scotty and Tobias are always better than the guy guarding them, pretty much. It's PG and C where we're getting wild fluctuations. JMO.
11. Memphis is too skinny. They can't guard except for shot-blocking, they can't rebound, they don't appear to play with discipline. They don't have a guy that can create his own shots from what I see, and they don't play in a structured offensive system that creates shots for them. I just wasn't impressed. But they are, of course, better than Martin, so Tennessee is definitely showing signs of life again no matter how weak Memphis is or isn't this year.
12. Last one. I loved that Tennessee shot the 3 with confidence tonight. It's easy to get scared of the thing when they're not going in, and they haven't been going in for a long time now. We shot it like we just played Pitt yesterday, instead of like we haven't hit a 3 since before we started Christmas shopping. Doubt we can count on Melvin staying lights-out all season, but Bone and Hopson should stay reliable (actually Hopson sneaked out of the slump a couple games ago, I think). Could use Cam's shot back soon.
