BTO’s Ole Miss Postgame Report

[TennesseeFan07]

If this team is going to reach its potential it's going to have to let Hatfield and Chandler grow on the job....I get that's not who Barnes is as a coach, but I think it's time for Him to try something different

Hard to find Hatfield the minutes when he is getting lost on defense. That's to be expected from someone who should be in high school. I just hope he sticks it out.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

If this team is going to reach its potential it's going to have to let Hatfield and Chandler grow on the job....I get that's not who Barnes is as a coach, but I think it's time for Him to try something different

Don’t look now, but Powell is getting a ton of minutes while Bailey did not. Instead of lots of Plav, 4 guards are on the floor. Mashack is working his way into the rotation. I wonder if Barnes has EVER used 2 true point guards this much at the same time in his entire career. Surely not two freshmen. But Barnes is set in his ways.

The PGs are freshman and one other guard is in his first year. I have a feeling that Plav has been schooling BHH in practice. Might could be stoking a fire with BHH and perhaps he will be making huge strides in the second half. It’s up to him. Being great in high school doesn’t get guaranteed minutes at this level of basketball.

I like this team a lot. They’ll probably dig too deep of a hole to grab an SEC championship, but things can be falling into place nicely by late February and March. One recent team relied too much on a couple of one-and-done wings. One really good team hitched the wagon to just a couple of highly experienced, very good players. Ref’s quick whistles putting them in early foul trouble (over and over) and just an injury or two disrupted that season. This team may not have one go to player to depend on, but they have a bunch that are capable of stepping up.

 

[berryvol]

If this team is going to reach its potential it's going to have to let Hatfield and Chandler grow on the job....I get that's not who Barnes is as a coach, but I think it's time for Him to try something different

BHH does not need to see the floor some games. He’s seemed lost on both ends of the floor the last few games. Came in late in the 2H tonight and immediately had a terrible momentum shifting turnover. He’s gonna have to step it up big time down the stretch to see many minutes.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Once again, not enough alphas on this team.

Maybe there will be 4 or 5 dogs by February. Plav and ORN have been gradually trending up. ORN could be a dog. JJJ as well (loved his dunks off of feeds tonight). The PGs are in a bit of a slump but that’s to be expected for freshmen and who knows how much the viruses have wrecked their conditioning. Vescovi practically took over tonight at the end. When he plays like that, Powell or another will be getting great looks while the defense is focused on SV.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Not happening. He is stubborn as hell. Why he’s a good coach and not elite. I’ve followed him since a kid when he was at Clemson. His lineups and substitutions make zero sense, he rides players like BHH and Powell, and not others, and is an average at best game coach. He isn’t worth $6 million and this team will flounder and flop just like last season. It’s frustrating as hell to watch but it’s the reality with him.

I’m sure he appreciates the million dollar raise you’ve given him.

I’ll take flounders and flops with S16s and EEs. TN has 7x S16s before Barnes. Barnes has 3x as many EEs than TN has had in its history.

 

[Aladywhovolunteer]

We do not (at this moment) have a Kyle Guy or De'Andre Hunter on this team. Those two dudes were studs.

I have a child with three degrees from UVA...so I have watched the 2019 UVA team a lot. Ty Jerome a 6 foot 6 junior point guard was key for that team. Everybody on the team knew their role. That UVA team is almost a carbon copy of TN's 2019 team. Most of the team to include Guy were jr's.

The difference between our 2019 team and UVA's 2019 team is we did not become the first ever 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed in 2018. That hurt...seared that UVA team to another level. If not for a terrible call with 2 seconds on the clock, Tn would have played UVA in the Elite Eight. As you remember, UVa was down by three with only a few seconds to go in the game and Purdue fouled them. Jerome made the first missed the second (not on purpose) and UVA got a long rebound tipped out by red shirt jr Mamidu (sp) who converted a two point shot at the buzzer to get the game to overtime. A team of destiny.

Interesting story. Locals (my family) in C-Ville credit UTK's 45 point beat down of UVA under Coach Martin as a catalist to the championship game. After that game, Joe Harris asked Coach Bennet what do we have to do to get better. The rest is history!

 

[Aladywhovolunteer]

Not happening. He is stubborn as hell. Why he’s a good coach and not elite. I’ve followed him since a kid when he was at Clemson. His lineups and substitutions make zero sense, he rides players like BHH and Powell, and not others, and is an average at best game coach. He isn’t worth $6 million and this team will flounder and flop just like last season. It’s frustrating as hell to watch but it’s the reality with him.

It's always the money...Sad!

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

I have a child with three degrees from UVA...so I have watched the 2019 UVA team a lot. Ty Jerome a 6 foot 6 junior point guard was key for that team. Everybody on the team knew their role. That UVA team is almost a carbon copy of TN's 2019 team. Most of the team to include Guy were jr's.

The difference between our 2019 team and UVA's 2019 team is we did not become the first ever 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed in 2018. That hurt...seared that UVA team to another level. If not for a terrible call with 2 seconds on the clock, Tn would have played UVA in the Elite Eight. As you remember, UVa was down by three with only a few seconds to go in the game and Purdue fouled them. Jerome made the first missed the second (not on purpose) and UVA got a long rebound tipped out by red shirt jr Mamidu (sp) who converted a two point shot at the buzzer to get the game to overtime. A team of destiny.

Interesting story. Locals (my family) in C-Ville credit UTK's 45 point beat down of UVA under Coach Martin as a catalist to the championship game. After that game, Joe Harris asked Coach Bennet what do we have to do to get better. The rest is history!

I bet that Ty Jerome wasn’t getting a couple of ticky tack fouls called on him in the opening minutes of games very often either. TN had a great team when the refs let Admiral and Grant stay in games and off of the bench.

 

[keenobserver]

1) Powell should get his own minutes in addition to every single Bailey minute. No reason for Bailey to ever see the floor at this point.

2) JJJ needs to get into a fight. Not on the court, but in his personal life. He continues to be one of the softest 5 star NBA bodies I've witnessed. Attack the rim! Push someone around! Rebound, do something besides brick 3's. Our team will never reach its potential until he finds a way to develop some kind of physicality. By the way, he'll never see the NBA until he figures that out.

3) we're at our best when Chandler attacks the rim. He either scores, gets his shot blocked or dishes for a score. Our odds are much better when he's in charge instead of a random long ball three

4) Uros played the best game of his career tonight. He needs 5-7 minutes.

5) We are desperate for a consistent rim protector. It's not Fulky or Uros. It has to be Hatfield. If we're going to be a championship team, he's going to have to be much better and have a larger role. I agree with the dude earlier that said he's gonna have to grow on the job for us to have a chance to win a championship

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

1) Powell should get his own minutes in addition to every single Bailey minute. No reason for Bailey to ever see 5 minutes.

2) JJJ needs to get into a fight. Not on the court, but in his personal life. He continues to be one of the softest 5 star NBA bodies I've witnessed. Attack the rim! Push someone around! Rebound, do something besides brick 3's.

3) we're at our best when Chandler attacks the rim. He either scores, gets his shot blocked or dishes for a score. Our odds are much better when he's in charge instead of a random long ball three

4) Uros played the best game of his career tonight. He needs 5-7 minutes.

5) We are desperate for a consistent rim protector. It's not Fulky or Uros. It has to be Hatfield Hundley. If we're going to be a championship team, he's going to have to be much better and have a larger role.

These seem like very random observations of a game not in TBA Wednesday night.

 

[keenobserver]

These seem like very random observations of a game not in TBA Wednesday night.

Combination of Wednesday and a general outlook on the future of the season. Is there any specific observation you disagree with?

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Combination of Wednesday and a general outlook on the future of the season. Is there any specific observation you disagree with?

1). TN will need depth in all likelihood. Bailey played two minutes and wasn’t able to play himself out of his slump. He’s certainly capable of seeing over 5 minutes at some point. Personally I like QD and Mashack to eventually pass him in the rotation, but he’s one of the most experienced players. It doesn’t seem like a keen idea to shut him down completely. Powell isn’t a world beater. He’s made several uncontested 3s though… possibly the best on the team at converting those. But those looks aren’t all that common with the high intensity defenses that TN has been and will be facing. Guarding the 3-PL is the book on TN.

2). 2 for 5 from 3. 2 for 2 inside the arc. Two huge dunks attacking the rim. 8 rebounds. He had 4 fouls. Refs call fouls on players that push other players around… especially when they play facing the basket. JJJ is consistently one of, if not, THE best defender. Uros is the guy that needs to be pushing on defenders when the refs allow the low posts to play rough. ORN is looking tougher than his history. Plus he’s adding a lot from the 3-PL.

3). Having your shot blocked isn’t good.

4). 4 pts, 3 rebounds, a TO, a steal, 2 missed shots, a foul, zero blocked shots. Best game of his career?

5). TN can go with 4 guards. Fulk, ORN, and even Uros run the floor exceptionally well for bigs. I don’t think that less or more rim protection will sink or save this team. The defense is outstanding. BHH doesn’t look like an answer. Consistent minutes from ORN and a healthy Fulk would be. BHH comes in, makes a highlight reel play, then makes mistakes. He doesn’t seem close to being able to taking anybody’s minutes. When every possession is critical with the defense first focus, can’t be having BHH’s mistakes and frequently be taking plays off. A great BHH makes a championship less challenging, but it doesn’t require that he figure it out for it to happen. Consistent contributions from the 3 players in front of him will work.

Bonus: Chandler and ZZZ need to be drawing fouls and getting to the FT line. Mashack will be a beast when his offense catches up to the rest that he brings. AND QD actually looked better than Jamai at times versus lesser opponents.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

How many bringing the negative commentary were actually in the arena Wednesday night? Sometimes TV distorts the story. I thought that the ball movement was pretty good. It was intense. EVERY possession was critical. The crowd was really good… the team seemed to perform even better on defense when it was rocking. Even after the missed attempts that would have blown the roof off, the crowd kept coming back time after time and was a huge factor.

 

[jp1]

How many bringing the negative commentary were actually in the arena Wednesday night? Sometimes TV distorts the story. I thought that the ball movement was pretty good. It was intense. EVERY possession was critical. The crowd was really good… the team seemed to perform even better on defense when it was rocking. Even after the missed attempts that would have blown the roof off, the crowd kept coming back time after time and was a huge factor.

I agree with alot of what you have said. Our team is on another level on the defensive side of the ball. However, I did only get to watch the game at home. The one thing that I can confidently say my view from home didn't distort was the initial 11 minutes without a bucket. That can't just be explained away as a fluke. Its happened another time this season already. This must get fixed for us to make any noise in the postseason. A great defense can't be the total answer.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

I agree with alot of what you have said. Our team is on another level on the defensive side of the ball. However, I did only get to watch the game at home. The one thing that I can confidently say my view from home didn't distort was the initial 11 minutes without a bucket. That can't just be explained away as a fluke. Its happened another time this season already. This must get fixed for us to make any noise in the postseason. A great defense can't be the total answer.

It was weird. They weren’t horrible attempts. Part of the reason that it went on for so long was that the defense was so intense on both ends. The time burned off really quickly. TN didn’t even get a shot off for over the first two minutes and only two shots in the first three. Fulkerson actually made the first basket 7:36 in. It was the second basket that was made 11 minutes in. 2 for 16 and then two more missed shots. TN went 23 for 46 the rest of the game. That’s about 3 games when there was a lid on the basket to start a game. Maybe 4. Good thing tonight was that TN didn’t quit or get too frustrated to keep at it and WON!

 

[1985Vols]

Yep. This team needs to be fearless. Can't second-guess themselves. If we can do that, I think the offense will come. Attack, attack, attack. Especially Powell.

That’s how they played early in the season. No sure why they have all of a sudden started secon guessing themselves on offense. Especially Powell and Chandler. ZZ and Bailey have never met a shot they didn’t like. I don’t mind ZZ taking some shots but Bailey have proven over 2 1/2 years he’s only going to shoot well once every 7 or 8 games

 

[1985Vols]

Not happening. He is stubborn as hell. Why he’s a good coach and not elite. I’ve followed him since a kid when he was at Clemson. His lineups and substitutions make zero sense, he rides players like BHH and Powell, and not others, and is an average at best game coach. He isn’t worth $6 million and this team will flounder and flop just like last season. It’s frustrating as hell to watch but it’s the reality with him.

I know everyone thinks I’m a Barnes bashed, but really I just try to speak the truth. He is a “ good” coach, not elite, unless he has the right Assistants. He also beats his players down when things are not going well and I feel this really takes the confidence out of 18-22 year olds. It seems we started the season playing loose and having fun, Now it looks like everything is a challenge offensively and players are hesitant to shoot ( except for Bailey) Chandler doesn’t even look like the same player he did the first 5 or 6 games when he was driving to the basket and making plays. Is it the Barnes effect?

 

[CAVPUT]

Hard to find Hatfield the minutes when he is getting lost on defense. That's to be expected from someone who should be in high school. I just hope he sticks it out.

It's always been my contention that he's the real missing piece to the puzzle. We need a big with his skills to balance the offense. No offense to the other post players, but they're either not as skilled or fragile. If we go thru the year and the light doesn't come on for him, I don't see us being a serious threat come Feb/March unless Barnes can coach some offense up when our plethora of 3 pt shooters all start bricking at the same time.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Early in the season I was convinced that they were evolving into a core rotation of 8 or 9 regulars with Bailey being the “possible” 9th. Somebody (guess who) argued hard that Bailey was not going to drop that far and NO WAY would ZZZ be playing more than Bailey. I was right. What I did miss was that BHH wouldn’t be able to develop enough to be in the core group. I was mocked about ZZZ being part of the first 8. Today, Powell is fighting to be in the first 7 and Plav has improved significantly. ZZZ had 28 minutes last night. The same as Chandler, but Chandler is coming off of a virus. Part of the game plan was also to have Ole Miss chase ZZZ and gas their short rotation. It finally started working the last 5-10 of regulation and in the OT. Ole Miss hung on for about 35 minutes before hitting a wall.

The 6 in case it’s not obvious:
Fulk
ORN
JJJ
SV
KC
ZZZ

2 of 6 are freshman and the apparent #7 is in year #1. 43% are new to the program. There’s lots of room to get better before late February and March.

And BHH, Powell, and Bailey were 7, 8, and 9.

Amazingly Uros got real close to being in the core group however his role seems to be to play early but only for a few minutes total per game. One thing that that does is it keeps other posts out of foul trouble to a certain degree. Seems like JJJ is having the most difficulty avoiding foul trouble this year. That probably comes from often being assigned the opponent’s best offensive player.

It is going to be very interesting to see how many minutes ZZZ has night in and night out. He seems out of place but has been amazing. Barnes said that he told ZZZ that he wouldn’t be playing in the Arizona game because they’d post him up. He said that ZZZ pushed back and said that they wouldn’t be able to do that. It will be really fun to have him for 4 years. Barnes is maybe inventing a new strategy. Dual true point guards. It will continue next year.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

It's always been my contention that he's the real missing piece to the puzzle. We need a big with his skills to balance the offense. No offense to the other post players, but they're either not as skilled or fragile. If we go thru the year and the light doesn't come on for him, I don't see us being a serious threat come Feb/March unless Barnes can coach some offense up when our plethora of 3 pt shooters all start bricking at the same time.

BHH kind of reminds me of Admiral as a freshman. AS was needed inside but wanted to be on the perimeter. When he finally did what was best for the team he developed into an all-time legend that contributed heavily both inside AND outside. Making his inside game better created opportunities for his outside game. BHH seems to want to play away from and facing the basket. He doesn’t seem to embrace setting the screens at the high post. He could double or triple his minutes if he’d focus on playing close to the basket and setting high screens as enthusiastically as Plav.

 

[sechamp2012]

If we weren't missing 3's from the start of the game. I might have wondered if the 100+% exertion on D was bleeding over to their shooting accuracy.
I give KC a Covid pass.

 

[cardvolfan]

Bama was a game we gave away and Ole Miss gave us one back. Defense was great but will only take us so far. Offensively, in the half court set we are not good. We need to run early and often off defensive rebounds and stops.

I never saw the Bama game as one we gave away. Neither team ever led by more than 6 points. Vols led most of the second half, so it was disappointing. The two 3’s Bama hit the last 90 seconds were the difference. We were fortunate to win last night, but no one gave Tennessee that game. We persevered, kept fighting, and finally made some plays.

 

[njvols]

I thought we'd have the sharp shooters this year, similar to Villanova, in that if one or two had a bad night, we had enough guys added, like Powell, who could add points. It's apparent either the whole team is hot or none of them are, and on rare occasion, our post players can step up. Our D is legit, but our offense too inconsistent to be a top 10 team or push for SEC championship...at this point.

 

[jp1]

I never saw the Bama game as one we gave away. Neither team ever led by more than 6 points. Vols led most of the second half, so it was disappointing. The two 3’s Bama hit the last 90 seconds were the difference. We were fortunate to win last night, but no one gave Tennessee that game. We persevered, kept fighting, and finally made some plays.

We certainly led the Bama game more than 6 points. Go back and rewatch it.

 

[Johnnyreb#VFL]

Powell is a defensive liability, but when that side of the ball is playing as well as it is, I guess you continue to give him the minutes for his offensive potential.