The Official “Regular Posters of the Basketball Forum” Thread

#14,632
#14,632
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#14,634
#14,634
Tennessee at #4 in the athletic power rankings after the UF game (the summary is mostly about the gators, sadly)

Men's College basketball power rankings: Everyone has an off night, except for Zach Edey

4. Tennessee (18-4)
Hey, Florida! Good to see you again. With all due respect to Todd Golden’s first team in Gainesville, it has been very easy to ignore Florida men’s basketball this year — the Gators have been a paragon of averageness pretty much from the start. In the nonconference, they beat every bad team they played, lost to every good squad, and have only recently peppered in a couple of victories over semi-quality teams (Missouri, at Mississippi State, neither of which are world-beaters either) to prove they could occasionally emerge victorious over an opponent that wasn’t ranked somewhere below the 130s in adjusted efficiency margin. When you write about the national college hoops scene for a while, you tend to figure out pretty quickly which teams you can safely ignore. Florida was the epitome.

Until Wednesday night! The Gators woke up the echoes for their visit from Tennessee; there was, at least judging by the view from the couch, real juice in the O-Dome again. Colin Castleton — still a very good player, by the way — had 16 of his 20 points (with nine rebounds) in the second half. Meanwhile, the Gators’ defense got a showcase. This was the nation’s 10th-best per-trip defense coming in, and you could see the way the Gators’ perimeter extension and constant deflection-hunting affected Tennessee’s rhythm. The Volunteers never looked remotely comfortable, shot 19-of-69 from the field and 5-of-25 from 3, and finished with 54 points in 65 possessions.

It was a massive win for Florida, another upset to add to 2022-23’s list (10 different AP top two teams have lost already this year), and another night of big offensive concern for UT. Usually, this team guards well enough to win. That was arguably true Wednesday night, too. But just like the home loss to Kentucky, the offense just vanished for a night, as it has, in recent seasons, been much more prone to do.
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1. Purdue
2. Houston
3. Bama
4. Vols
5. UVA
6. Zona
7. Kansas
8. UCLA
9. Marquette
10. Texas
11. Baylor
12. Kansas St
 
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#14,635
#14,635
In our 4 losses we've averaged

33.8% FG
23.6% 3PT

We've not lost a game where we shot above 30% from 3PT so far. Another interesting stat is that Arizona was the only team that beat us that didn't shoot 30% or better from 3PT against us. It's also no surprise that the top 3 teams in free throw attempts against us were all losses. Colorado also still shot a high number from the line too (7th most of anyone we've faced).

It's weird, when we implode it's at all levels, we're suddenly not hitting shots and then we're not defending the 3PT ball as well and also fouling more.
 
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#14,640
#14,640
Honest question here. Do these forum commentators even watch games or keep up with events, or do they just comment based on score? I realize there are many who have a very archaic understanding of the game. Basically an inability to understand. They are very willing to critique their own “team” without any willingness to consider the overall totality of what college basketball is. Follow another team for 3 months, then tell me what you think.
 
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#14,641
#14,641
cardvolfan said:
Honest question here. Do these forum commentators even watch games or keep up with events, or do they just comment based on score? I realize there are many who have a very archaic understanding of the game. Basically an inability to understand. They are very willing to critique their own “team” without any willingness to consider the overall totality of what college basketball is. Follow another team for 3 months, then tell me what you think.
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They may watch the games but too many still have a football season mindset. I've seen a few threads in other forums lamenting that "every time we get a team in the Top 5 we choke". I mean I guess but being in the Top 5 for basketball doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot outside of bragging rights. Yeah it means something for seeding and all but until you play the NCAAT games it means not a lot.

And I'm already seeing we'll have a lot with the same mentality for baseball.
 
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#14,642
#14,642
cardvolfan said:
Honest question here. Do these forum commentators even watch games or keep up with events, or do they just comment based on score? I realize there are many who have a very archaic understanding of the game. Basically an inability to understand. They are very willing to critique their own “team” without any willingness to consider the overall totality of what college basketball is. Follow another team for 3 months, then tell me what you think.
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I’m not sure who is or isn’t included in this group you’re referring to. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s not, but personally none of my disappointment is with the L or that we have 4 L’s on our W/L record. I’m simply discouraged by some of what I have seen in the losses and I am concerned about what this could mean for March because there are themes emerging with what our deficiencies are on this team.

It also doesn’t help that I thought we had an outside shot at winning the SEC, but that is basically gone now unless we go 8-1 the rest of the way so the day or two immediately after a loss like that is going to sting. It’s not the end of the season obviously, it just means there is likely one less trophy that is now possible for this season.
 
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#14,643
#14,643
TheMookieMonster said:
I’m not sure who is or isn’t included in this group you’re referring to. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s not, but personally none of my disappointment is with the L or that we have 4 L’s on our W/L record. I’m simply discouraged by some of what I have seen in the losses and I am concerned about what this could mean for March because there are themes emerging with what our deficiencies are on this team.

It also doesn’t help that I thought we had an outside shot at winning the SEC, but that is basically gone now unless we go 8-1 the rest of the way so the day or two immediately after a loss like that is going to sting. It’s not the end of the season obviously, it just means there is likely one less trophy that is now possible for this season.
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It’s not you, Mookie. You’re reasonable and willing to look at both sides of the coin. Some believe their viewpoint is the only right one. I like give and take and discussing different viewpoints. There are some here that would do anything to win the argument. Personally, I don’t have to be right, and am frequently persuaded to a different viewpoint by posters who provide credible narrative. I truly believe a big % of the drive-by posters are just not knowledgeable enough about the game to understand what they’re posting is just not right. Then you have a few, a few that play checkers and such, that I just can’t comprehend.
 
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#14,644
#14,644
I know what you mean @cardvolfan I also dislike the overall absolutes most of these more casual posters seem to have. Like one bad game does not a trend make.

I love this team and most the players on it. Huge fan of Santi, most of you have seen me go to bat for him over the last four years in game threads or even in here. But not a single player on this team is a perfect player. Santi for example is a great shooter, but he can't create his own shot and he's limited at penetrating to the basket. All things he's obviously worked on in his 4 years here, he's better in those areas now than when he arrived, but he's still somewhat one dimensional as an offensive threat.

Turner was quicker and better at driving than Santi is. Lofton was better at it as well and Lofton was better at creating his own shot from 3 because of that dribble drive ability.

But Santi is a gritty player, he works his tail off on defense. He's our best screener and uses screens better than anyone on the team. He should be getting far more calls as well because of how often his defenders simply grab him when he's using screens. I'd actually like to see him work a bit more at cutting to the basket for layups off some of the screening action he's involved in, feel like it'd put even more pressure on his defender and the opposing team's big to help. Georgia did it to us a few times where they'd using a guard to screen then cut to the basket.
 
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#14,645
#14,645
MoCo_Vol said:
I know what you mean @cardvolfan I also dislike the overall absolutes most of these more casual posters seem to have. Like one bad game does not a trend make.

I love this team and most the players on it. Huge fan of Santi, most of you have seen me go to bat for him over the last four years in game threads or even in here. But not a single player on this team is a perfect player. Santi for example is a great shooter, but he can't create his own shot and he's limited at penetrating to the basket. All things he's obviously worked on in his 4 years here, he's better in those areas now than when he arrived, but he's still somewhat one dimensional as an offensive threat.

Turner was quicker and better at driving than Santi is. Lofton was better at it as well and Lofton was better at creating his own shot from 3 because of that dribble drive ability.

But Santi is a gritty player, he works his tail off on defense. He's our best screener and uses screens better than anyone on the team. He should be getting far more calls as well because of how often his defenders simply grab him when he's using screens. I'd actually like to see him work a bit more at cutting to the basket for layups off some of the screening action he's involved in, feel like it'd put even more pressure on his defender and the opposing team's big to help. Georgia did it to us a few times where they'd using a guard to screen then cut to the basket.
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I’ve been wondering if Santi is playing more injured than we believe. He hasn’t exactly looked right since the Kentucky game where he got slung to the ground on his already injured shoulder. Regardless, we need to get more out of him. He’s had a few games where he has disappeared and we just really can’t afford for that to happen through this final stretch of games in the regular season as the competition gets tougher and tougher. We need him to be classic Santi.
 
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#14,646
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TheMookieMonster said:
I’ve been wondering if Santi is playing more injured than we believe. He hasn’t exactly looked right since the Kentucky game where he got slung to the ground on his already injured shoulder. Regardless, we need to get more out of him. He’s had a few games where he has disappeared and we just really can’t afford for that to happen through this final stretch of games in the regular season as the competition gets tougher and tougher. We need him to be classic Santi.
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He's scored at least 6 points in every game he's played in, even against Florida he still scored 11. The blueprint on Santi is out and thus far he's still been able to get some buckets, but hasn't really found a way to take advantage of how teams are defending him. He's one of the only players on our team that every defense basically does the same thing to defend him. They put their best perimeter defender on him or they put a bigger guy with length that plays very physical against him when he's not got the ball (it's what Kentucky did, and they got away with it too).

I do think that shoulder isn't 100% though, he's shooting his lowest % from 3 of his career this season.

I'd actually argue that JJJ and/or Phillips are the two players we need more from.

Julian scored 28 in the two road games against Mississippi State and LSU and in the 3 games since he's only scored 15.
JJJ drops 22 on LSU, then just 6 against Georgia, then 14 against Texas and then just 4 against Florida...he's been a Yo-Yo all season. If the small ball lineup we're trying to run is going to be successful he's gotta be more consistent scoring nightly.

At this point, ZZ has been on fire since the Kentucky game but he needs some help. ON has had 2 really good games offensively back to back, but before the Texas game he hadn't scored 10 since playing at South Carolina.

Don't even wanna talk about Key...1 time since Eastern Kentucky has he scored 10 points and unlike Julian, JJJ, and Santi he really isn't adding a ton elsewhere. Doesn't rebound great, doesn't generate a ton of assists and rarely gets a steal.
 
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#14,650
#14,650
Volprofch05 said:
Athletic has Vols at 2 seed (with Purdoo)

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Don’t love that draw, but it’s certainly not the worst. I think we matchup well with Iowa. Their defense is in the 130s. Nothing will be easy after the first weekend anyway, so I’m pretty much only going to look at the first two games to determine draws anyway.
 
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