I know, it’s football season but I thought the basketball team heading off to Europe was news worthy. Here are Coach Pearl’s comments before heading out.
What have you gotten done in the practices?
I think the biggest thing is personnel and playing in some different positions. Chris Lofton playing 1 and 2. Ryan Childress and Wayne Chism playing both the forward and center positions. Duke Crews going from center to playing a little small forward. The other thing would be me experimenting with some lineups, and experimenting with some zone defense. Then taking that overseas against that older more experienced competition and see how we fare.
Does this team need to thrive in practice to blend together?
The first thing for us this year would be for this team to learn how to play without Dane Bradshaw. Dane Bradshaw was the glue, he was our leading breakdown guy and I can already see lots of areas that we miss Dane. We miss him in his leadership. We miss his ability to communicate defensively. He was just such a smart player. That’s what this group will do. Then we get here in the fall, we come back and now our new class can come in. Between Tyler, J.P, Brian and Cameron – they will also then add to what we got accomplished this summer.
What do you know about the teams you are playing?
We don’t know much about them except I would expect those guys to be older, stronger, tougher, pretty experienced and they will be competing. Now they aren’t going to be in mid-season form either cause these are professional teams. We are going to be playing against pros. We are going to be playing against national teams. We are going to be playing against guys that aren’t quite good enough to play in the NBA but they are good enough to get paid. It will be a step up for our guys. I know historically, when I’ve taken teams overseas before it’s often times helped us be successful especially early in the season the coming year. Then what an experience for these young men from an academic standpoint, a cultural standpoint to be able to experience something so significantly special.
It will be a great trip no doubt. We get back a few days before school starts and we’ll probably not have as early a start to our fall conditioning program but I know these guys are excited about representing the University of Tennessee across the country.
The talk of Tennessee playing a zone defense is intriguing to me. I’m sure that Coach Pearl is thinking that the moving back of the three point line next year may be an opportunity to look at some zone defense. I don’t believe it’s something that Pearl has had much experience with and trying it out in Europe could be a true measure of how effective we could be with it.
Keep in mind some of the rule differences in Europe: 24 second shot clock, 8 seconds in the back court, a wider lane and a longer three point shot.