Since Bruce Pearl took over at Tennessee, the phrase "controlled chaos" has been the keystone of Pearl's squads. The frenetic nature of the Volunteers' defensive press certainly gave opponents fits. However, the speedsters Pearl once recruited to Knoxville gave way to taller and rangier but slightly slower athletes. This led Pearl, for the past 1½ years, to refrain from his full-court press and employ a physical and so far successful half-court defense.
While this transformation may seem like a feat of genius, some of the credit should go to Maryland's Gary Williams, who Pearl said told him it is foolish to trap players at an elite level because it won't work -- in essence, the athletes are too quick.
It's a good thing Tennessee adjusted its defensive tactics; in its game Saturday against Pittsburgh (3:15 p.m. ET on ESPN and ESPN3.com), the Panthers would have carved holes in that press. Trying to force
Ashton Gibbs,
Brad Wanamaker or any of the other Pitt ballhandlers into turnovers is an exercise in futility; Pitt coughs up the ball on only 6.6 percent of its possessions, 10th-best in the nation.
Many have pinpointed the battle for the W will occur on the offensive and defensive glass; there is some merit to this notion. Pitt had the nation's second-best offensive rebounding percentage in 2009-10; however, more than half of the percentage came from contributions by
DeJuan Blair, now a member of the San Antonio Spurs. This season, Pitt's offensive percentage ranks first (48.5 percent) but the work is more collective.
Six Panthers each grab more than 10 percent of all offensive boards. But Tennessee is no slouch on the boards, either. While the Vols don't rebound at the same rate at Pitt, they are ranked within the top 50 in both rebounding percentages, with the svelte
Brian Williams grabbing 24.8 percent of all defensive boards.
The game will easily be the most physical contest either team has faced this season. And this physicality will play a major role in determining whether UT can prevail. For a team that averages more than a point per pace-adjusted possession (1.09), Tennessee is not a good two-point shooting team. The Vols convert close to 50 percent of their shots within the arc, and of the players who take the highest percentage of shots --
Scotty Hopson and
Tobias Harris -- neither converts on more than half of his two-point attempts. So what's the takeaway? How does UT possess an efficient offense with a dreadful shooting percentage?
It's because the Vols get to the stripe at will.
The Vols' free throw rate is 58.7 percent -- tops in the nation -- which means UT shoots at least one free throw on close to 60 percent of its field goal attempts. And the Vols convert those shots at a clip of 68.4 percent, which makes scoring from the line their most pivotal asset.
Jamie Dixon has some reason to fret. Though Pitt is not on the level of Denver (last in defensive FT rate) or even Missouri (middle of the pack), the Panthers do commit a decent number of fouls. And the Panthers most likely to commit those fouls are the bigs who give Dixon's team its rebounding edge. Besides
Gary McGhee, each of the other five frontcourt players commit more than five fouls per 40 minutes.
But if the game is played straight up and the refs swallow their whistles, Tennessee's half-court shell must become vacuum-esque. The Panthers have become more efficient on two-point shots, converting more than 53 percent of them, as compared to 48.9 percent for Tennessee. While it has been tough to score on UT this season (an OPPP of 86.8), it's almost impossible to believe Pearl would attempt a 2-3 zone against Pitt; the chance the Panthers would carve up the zone is too high. Rather, Pearl may choose to use a similar strategy to the one employed versus Villanova. In that game, Hopson and his 6-foot-7 frame gave
Corey Fisher fits, forcing the Nova guard into a 1-for-10 night.
Hopson has the speed to guard Gibbs, who is a tad slow afoot. Because Gibbs is not the sole weapon in Pitt's offense, it will be interesting to see if
Cameron Tatum draws the defensive assignment on Wanamaker. Tatum is often forgotten amid the Vols' big names, but the 6-6 junior may be the Vols' most valuable player. According to the site
StatSheet.com, which measures the plus/minus of every player within the college ranks, Tatum has posted the biggest disparity in +/- throughout the Vols' first six games.
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