The Official #17 Tennessee vs. #5 Villanova Game Thread, 1:00 PM ET, ESPN News

#1,407
#1,407
Tennessee had no chance against Villanova's 'attitude'

The Wildcats do not have any obvious NBA players. Plenty of guys could become NBA players: Samuels, Gillespie, Justin Moore. But no one jumps off the floor as an obvious draft pick/longtime NBA stud. The college basketball handbook will tell you that to win big in the sport — like national championship big — you have to have at least one or two pro guys. But if you play like Villanova did against Tennessee, like you’re on a schoolyard fighting for your lunch money, it is an awfully good equalizer. “Those guys have some dudes,” an NBA scout said, nodding toward the Tennessee bench at halftime, when the Vols trailed by 20 and had 15 points. “And they look like a middle school team right now.”

Ouch
 
#1,411
#1,411
zjcvols said:
I was fine with this logic until we got serious and decide to commit serious money (and White is also going to commit resources now as well) a couple years ago. This whole never win in the postseason, 20-22 wins a year type seasons aren’t acceptable when you’re a top 5 paid coach.
Click to expand...

That's fine and understandable. I hope for great seasons, but as someone whose introduction to Tennessee basketball was Buzz ball, I just can't bring myself to expect much beyond what I stated.
 
#1,412
#1,412
Volprofch05 said:
Tennessee had no chance against Villanova's 'attitude'

The Wildcats do not have any obvious NBA players. Plenty of guys could become NBA players: Samuels, Gillespie, Justin Moore. But no one jumps off the floor as an obvious draft pick/longtime NBA stud. The college basketball handbook will tell you that to win big in the sport — like national championship big — you have to have at least one or two pro guys. But if you play like Villanova did against Tennessee, like you’re on a schoolyard fighting for your lunch money, it is an awfully good equalizer. “Those guys have some dudes,” an NBA scout said, nodding toward the Tennessee bench at halftime, when the Vols trailed by 20 and had 15 points. “And they look like a middle school team right now.”

Ouch
Click to expand...

That’s about as damning as it gets
 
#1,413
#1,413
BisonVol said:
That's fine and understandable. I hope for great seasons, but as someone whose introduction to Tennessee basketball was Buzz ball, I just can't bring myself to expect much beyond what I stated.
Click to expand...

Like idk why Vol fans don’t understand the one time we sucked at basketball for a decent amount of time was when Dickey was in charge. Other than, we are a good program.
 
#1,414
#1,414
Memphisvol87 said:
I see we have come back to earth. Barnes teams will always be good but never great. Hopefully we find a way to bounce back.
Click to expand...

Maybe no individual team will be great, but he is building a great program. It is generous to say that Tennessee is historically making the NCAAT 40% of the time. TN is on the verge of being a program that makes the tournament every year. TN will finally be a sought after job when Barnes decides to retire. Plus he has a coaches tree. A really good coaches tree. There are some idiot posters that actually want to blow him out. Room temperature IQ types of posters.
 
  • Like
Reactions: walkenvol and therealitytheory
#1,416
#1,416
zjcvols said:
Like idk why Vol fans don’t understand the one time we sucked at basketball for a decent amount of time was when Dickey was in charge. Other than, we are a good program.
Click to expand...

Depends on how you define a good program. If your definition is that we have been consistently good year after year (at least for the most part), then I have to disagree.

This isn't a bad program by any means, but we've been a little hit or miss for several years now if we look at our last seven coaches. The O'Neil years were awful. Green years were good. Buzz years were awful. Pearl's run was excellent. Cuonzo wasn't terrible but not all that good either aside from sneaking into the tournament once and making a nice run.

The Tyndall year wasn't good. Barnes inherited a rough situation and struggled in his first two seasons because of it but has since been solid with a couple of really nice years that sadly ended in disappointing Tournament losses.

All of that to say, we've been good in stretches with a couple of elite seasons mixed in along with some awful stretches. This isn't a bad program. It's been shown that we can have some really good teams, but this isn't a program that has had good teams consistently. There's been plenty of bad basketball along the way.
 
Last edited:
#1,417
#1,417
Volprofch05 said:
Tennessee had no chance against Villanova's 'attitude'

The Wildcats do not have any obvious NBA players. Plenty of guys could become NBA players: Samuels, Gillespie, Justin Moore. But no one jumps off the floor as an obvious draft pick/longtime NBA stud. The college basketball handbook will tell you that to win big in the sport — like national championship big — you have to have at least one or two pro guys. But if you play like Villanova did against Tennessee, like you’re on a schoolyard fighting for your lunch money, it is an awfully good equalizer. “Those guys have some dudes,” an NBA scout said, nodding toward the Tennessee bench at halftime, when the Vols trailed by 20 and had 15 points. “And they look like a middle school team right now.”

Ouch
Click to expand...

Yikes.
 
#1,420
#1,420
BisonVol said:
Depends on how you define a good program. If your definition is that we have been consistently good year after year (at least for the most part), then I have to disagree.

This isn't a bad program by any means, but we've been pretty hit or miss for several years now if we look at our last seven coaches. The O'Neil years were awful. Green years were good. Buzz years were awful. Pearl's run was excellent. Cuonzo wasn't terrible but not all that good either aside from sneaking into the tournament once and making a nice run.

The Tyndall year wasn't good. Barnes inherited a rough situation and struggled in his first two seasons because of it but has since been solid with a couple of really nice years that sadly ended in disappointing Tournament losses.

All of that to say, we've been good in stretches. Can't so much more than that, though, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

The Green years were only good on paper. That guy was an incompetent, underachieving clown of a coach. Imagine what Bruce Pearl would have done with Jerry’s roster.

KO wasn’t awful (the years weren’t at all memorable though). KO reporting to Doug Dickey was toxic. Inheriting a program that went 5-22 after ending the previous year with a 101-40 beat down is as hot as dumpster fires come.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HarsinVol
#1,421
#1,421
Thunder Good-Oil said:
The Green years were only good on paper. That guy was an incompetent, underachieving clown of a coach. Imagine what Bruce Pearl would have done with Jerry’s roster.

KO wasn’t awful (the years weren’t at all memorable though). KO reporting to Doug Dickey was toxic. Inheriting a program that went 5-22 after ending the previous year with a 101-40 beat down is as hot as dumpster fires come.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I should have clarified on the Green years. Looking back, he arguably had the best rosters this program has ever had. Give his teams to Pearl and there is at least one Final Four there imo.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HarsinVol
#1,422
#1,422
BisonVol said:
Yeah, I should have clarified on the Green years. Looking back, he arguably had the best rosters this program has ever had. Give his teams to Pearl and there is at least one Final Four there imo.
Click to expand...

Green was about the 7th choice and a lot of that was KO being an a-hole and taking a dump on Tennessee because he hated Doug Dickey. Those two were a horrible combination of arrogant pricks.
 
#1,424
#1,424
TN might have pulled out of mediocrity quicker had Jerry Green lost a bunch more games. It is pretty hard to sell the job to ANY coach after Green went to 4 straight NCAATs in his 4 years and TN had only been to 9 total before he arrived.
 
#1,425
#1,425
Barnes is Jerry Green on paper, a Stu Aberdeen recruiter, Pat Summitt classy, a KO ass chewer (minus the dirty words), a Wade Houston nice guy, and he genuinely loves his players and they love him back. But he makes $5 million and stubbornly plays his more experienced players over the teenagers in November and December. Obviously he needs to be fahred.
 
Last edited:
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top