What if Pearl were 100% out of the picture?

#177
#177
volbeast33 said:
Not really, if its the team I am thinking of we got whipped physically by Louisville in the sweet sixteen...Part of what derailed that season was we had issues at the end of the season with something happening to our PG's( cant remember right off hand) We had to use J Howell for alot of minutes there and he was severely over matched. It was a disappointing end to the season though.
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It's the team that went 31-5, a school record for wins, won the SEC outright, had a #2 seed, beat Memphis and was ranked #1 for a week, and many were pissed that we didn't get a #1 seed. It was clearly Pearl's best team, the best team at UT in a long time.

I would say getting destroyed by Louisville in the Sweet 16 qualifies as underachieving.
 
#178
#178
NYC Vol said:
By grossly underachieved, you mean??

2 seed- lost 2nd round. Underachieved by 2 rounds
5 seed- lost 3rd round. Overachieved by 1 round
2 seed- lost 3rd round. Underachieved by 1 round
9 seed- lost 1st round. On target
6 seed- lost 4th round. Overachieved by 2 rounds
9 seed- lost 1st round. on target

By my calculations, that's not only NOT grossly underachieving, that's NOT underachieving at all. Seems like it's pretty much on par.

But boy, what I wouldn't give to grossly underachieve like that again...
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Good lord, did you miss the part where I specifically was talking about his best team? I said nothing about his 6 years overall. In fact, read my post again, you just proved my point.
 
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#179
#179
bleedingTNorange said:
I'm so confident I'll let you buy out for $999, I'll save you a dollar.

You underestimate just how bad the bottom of the SEC is IMO, our SEC schedule next year is very favorable.
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That's the only thing that gives me pause. Also Miss St will still have Ray, so that's the worst team in the league. But whatever, it's only $1k. At least it will make next year fun.

Any chance anyone knows someone that can get this pinned so we have a record of it?
 
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#180
#180
VolsSportsFan said:
Good lord, did you miss the part where I specifically was talking about his best team? I said nothing about his 6 years overall. In fact, read my post again, you just proved my point.
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I did miss that part. My bad.

I still wouldn't consider losing 1 round short of where your seeding expects you to be "grossly underachieving". The other thing is I didn't think that was his best team. It may have reached #1 but I thought his best team was his 2nd team. Lofton without health issues. Chism was fantastic as a freshman. Bradshaw was terrific. I think that was Bruce's best team. Maybe the team that went to the Elite 8 was his best but I don't think he could figure that team out til late.
 
#181
#181
NYC Vol said:
That's the only thing that gives me pause. Also Miss St will still have Ray, so that's the worst team in the league. But whatever, it's only $1k. At least it will make next year fun.

Any chance anyone knows someone that can get this pinned so we have a record of it?
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Yup, only playing Ky and Fl once each makes for the easiest conference schedule we've had under Martin.

Just copy the link and save it, not all that hard.
 
#182
#182
When you look at a combination of recruiting rankings, how the players are actually playing in college, percentage of scoring/rebounding/assists/steals returning, we're a whole lot closer to 10th next season than 4th imo.

The SEC was pretty young this year and a good portion of the teams will be returning a lot of experienced players. We will not.

Our recruiting hasn't been stellar, from a sheer stars in high school point of view next year we will be behind Florida, Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas and LSU.

This is how we stack up as far as returning experience.

Arkansas returns 3 of 4 guys who averaged more than 20 mins per game, their top 3 scorers and 4 of their top 5.

Auburn returns 3 of 5 20 minute per game players, and 4 of their top 6 scorers including Harrel who averaged 18ppg.

Alabama returns 5 of 6 20 minute guys, and 5 of their top 6 scorers.

Florida only returns 3 20 minute guys and only 1 of their top 4 scorers. They do however have a very talented roster from a * perspective waiting in the wings.

Georgia only has 1 senior and returns their top 5 scorers.

Kentucky, not sure who will or won't return. NBA level talent will abound though.

LSU returns 4 of 6 20 minute per game guys, 4 of 6 six top scorers including their top 2 overall.

Miss State returns 6 of 7 20 minute per game guys and their top 4 scorers.

Missouri returns 5 of 6 20 minute per game guys and 5 of their top 6 scorers, including Brown and Clarkson who averaged 20 and 18 ppg.

Ole Miss only loses Henderson, returns 5 of 6 20 minute per game players, Summers averaged 17ppg this season. He returns.

South Carolina returns 5 guys who played 20 minutes per game or more and 4 of their top 5 scorers.

Texas A&M returns 6 of 7 20 minute guys and their top 4 scorers.

Vandy returns 4 of their 6 20 minute guys and 4 of their top 6 scorers.


Tennessee likely returns 1 20 minute guy and 1 top 5 scorer in Richardson, if Stokes comes back we return 2 of each.

It's going to be rough next season unless some of the guys on the bench or the freshmen are far far better than it appears to date.
 
#183
#183
NYC Vol said:
I did miss that part. My bad.

I still wouldn't consider losing 1 round short of where your seeding expects you to be "grossly underachieving". The other thing is I didn't think that was his best team. It may have reached #1 but I thought his best team was his 2nd team. Lofton without health issues. Chism was fantastic as a freshman. Bradshaw was terrific. I think that was Bruce's best team. Maybe the team that went to the Elite 8 was his best but I don't think he could figure that team out til late.
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"Grossly" may be a bit strong but I think given how dominant we were in the regular season, how for all 3 games in the NCAAT we didn't play particularly well, and were never in the game with Louisville, to me that's definitely underachieving.

I think top to bottom that was his best team. His Elite 8 team I believe got hot at the right time, but the season had some bad losses (Southern Cal, swept by Vandy, lost at Georgia).
 
#184
#184
VolsSportsFan said:
If Martin made the Final Four and yet you'd still want next year, then all I can say is you're pretty much hopeless.
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Exactly, you gotta love the Martin haters. And the coaches body of work hasn't been bad at all considering they inherited 1 seasoned player(Tatum) and pretty much everyone else had to be developed. I call that starting at square 1. Now the best way to overcome that quickly is recruit your tail off like Butch has. It at least gets the rebuilding process off to a quick start. Cuonzo hasn't exactly done that, so it's been more of a slower process.
 
#185
#185
Here's taking the average finish for each SEC teams the last 3 years, and how it stacks up...(247 composite team rankings)

Kentucky 1
Florida 2
Arkansas 3
Missouri 4
Alabama 5
LSU 6
A&M 7
South Carolina 8
Tennessee 9
Vandy 10
Ole miss 11
Auburn 12
Mississippi state 13
Georgia 14



That doesn't take into account players leaving (Alabama with Pollard etc) and it also doesn't include Jarnell Stokes as he wasn't counted in a class. Adding Stokes into a class puts Tennessee around 6.
 
#186
#186
HBCButch said:
Exactly, you gotta love the Martin haters. And the coaches body of work hasn't been bad at all considering they inherited 1 seasoned player(Tatum) and pretty much everyone else had to be developed. I call that starting at square 1. Now the best way to overcome that quickly is recruit your tail off like Butch has. It at least gets the rebuilding process off to a quick start. Cuonzo hasn't exactly done that, so it's been more of a slower process.
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Therein lies the problem. We didn't need to be rebuilt, we needed to be maintained. Instead the recruiting has been subpar and now we do need to be rebuilt.
 
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#187
#187
bleedingTNorange said:
Except darius didn't come in with a subpar shot
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No he didn't...He is a Freshman with a pretty good supporting cast drawing a pretty good defender every night. Plus, the college game is all the more physical and the level of a 36 High School game season vs a College 36 game season is completely different.

Confidence is Darius' problem at the moment. It will come with time.
 
#188
#188
CAVol said:
Someone is gonna get paid in this thread.
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billz.gif
 
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#190
#190
VolArmy74 said:
Therein lies the problem. We didn't need to be rebuilt, we needed to be maintained. Instead the recruiting has been subpar and now we do need to be rebuilt.
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With all due respect I think you're wrong. To me, a team that just needs to be maintained(or in other words, don't screw them up) would be seasoned guys, already a set team. They were hardly set like some want to insist. I know people want to ignore it but we lost Hopson and Tobias. The only seasoned guys we had returning were Tatum, McBee and Hall and their averages didn't change much their entire time at UT. Bench type averages. The quantum leapers in scoring were Maymon, Golden and to some extent McRae into 11-12. I give Martin and his staff a lot more credit for developing those three than I'll ever give Pearl. Pearl should've had those three playing more in 10-11 imo. Stunted their development.
 
#194
#194
HBCButch said:
With all due respect I think you're wrong. To me, a team that just needs to be maintained(or in other words, don't screw them up) would be seasoned guys, already a set team. They were hardly set like some want to insist. I know people want to ignore it but we lost Hopson and Tobias. The only seasoned guys we had returning were Tatum, McBee and Hall and their averages didn't change much their entire time at UT. Bench type averages. The quantum leapers in scoring were Maymon, Golden and to some extent McRae into 11-12. I give Martin and his staff a lot more credit for developing those three than I'll ever give Pearl. Pearl should've had those three playing more in 10-11 imo. Stunted their development.
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Every good program has years where they have to replace a ton of veterans. When your roster has good enough recruits on the bench you're able to maintain. Martin took over a team with a good number of top 100 4 star type recruits. He didn't maintain that. 1 down year in recruiting is natural with the coaching change. His second class was not good enough to maintain, nor was his third and his 4th is borderline because we once again missed out on every top target.

Now we're left with significantly less talented players to replace the veterans than we had when Martin took over.
 
#195
#195
“@Ben_Fred: #Vols hoops home-and-homes next season will be Vanderbilt, Arkansas, LSU, South Carolina and Mississippi State.”

“@Ben_Fred: #Vols' away games next season: Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Ole Miss ... Home games: Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn and Texas A&M.”



Away:
Vandy
Arkansas
LSU
South Carolina
Mississippi State
Florida
Georgia
Missouri
Ole Miss


Home:
Vandy
Arkansas
LSU
South Carolina
Mississippi State
Kentucky
Alabama
Auburn
A&M
 
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#196
#196
Anybody that ever thought BP was ever back in the picture must have been living on Mars our dictator Jimmy Cheek was never going to let that happen.I'm still not a fan of CM but he has pulled the rabbit out of the hat this year sure hope Hart doesn't pull out some long term contract at least see if he can do it 2 years in a row.
 
#197
#197
I guess these people that signed the "petition" could start taking Husters into the stall instead of pictures of Bruce
 
#198
#198
C-town Vol said:
Personally, I think if Bruce was out of the picture (as opposed to still living in Knoxville, still talking about the Vols and about to come to the end of his show cause) then the majority of the fan base would be jumping all in with Martin on this run and way fewer would be calling for his head...they would be more willing to let the season play out before making judgment. But with Pearl sitting there for the taking it is difficult to not want him back. I will admit I am a Pearl fan. If Cuonzo took the team to the Final Four this year I think I would still want to hire Pearl. In part because I just love Pearl. In part because a magical run in the post season doesn't wipe out the body of work Martin has built thus far. However, if Pearl were out of the picture I would likely be much more in a wait and see mode.

Just trying to be transparent.
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100% out of it. Hook your horse to a different wagon.
 
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