The Official “Regular Posters of the Basketball Forum” Thread

[Chaz-Vol]

Kind of a good way to think of this years team. More talented than last years but need some leaders to bring the same mindset of last years.

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

Aside from King or Grunfeld, he's the highest performing incoming freshman we've ever had

 

[OrangeVolMan]

The Vandy athletic program is legit now. The days of buffoon coaches and girl kickers are over.

One year does not make them legit. In fact we don’t even know if their basketball or baseball teams are good this year.

 

[i2amavol]

Kind of a good way to think of this years team. More talented than last years but need some leaders to bring the same mindset of last years.

Not that I would normally disagree with Coach, but I think we DID lose to Houston last year, because we got caught up in the big win that came before it. We had just beaten the Kentucky Wildcats in a very emotional game for us.

Still, I can agree with his point. This team needs to focus on the game at hand, and not look back at what they just did.

 

[KnoxVillain]

Is Estrella playing tonight?

 

[chuckiepoo]

Is Estrella playing tonight?

https://247sports.com/college/tennessee/article/pair-of-vols-limited-in-practice-ahead-of-tennessee-volunteers-basketball-game-at-syracuse-orange-rick-barnes-jp-estrella-amaree-abram-264282590/

 

[knoxvol52]

Aside from King or Grunfeld, he's the highest performing incoming freshman we've ever had

Nope.

 

[BernardKingGOAT]

Nope.

Ah. Allan Houston. Nice

 

[johnfnkelly]

I’ve watched a lot of Tennessee basketball in my life, and if we’re going off both eye test and numbers I can’t think of any freshman in my lifetime that has popped in two games like Ament. He already looks like he’ll be the best true freshman in Tennessee basketball history (except maybe Bernard King, which I wasn’t alive for so can’t draw an opinion), so I’m not sure what realistically we’re looking for from a guy who’s averaging 20 PPG in just 25ish minutes a game.

Lol

 

[johnfnkelly]

Smith scored 31 points in his first 2 college games, Ingram scored 36, Ament is at 41 in his first 2 games.

Ament isn’t even in the same stratosphere as either of those guys.

 

[TheMookieMonster]

Lol

It’s one half of bad basketball in early December. We really going to do this? He’s been good to start the year.

 

[johnfnkelly]

It’s one half of bad basketball in early December. We really going to do this? He’s been good to start the year.

Good against North Kentucky?

 

[walkenvol]

I have no confidence in Ament or Burg to not turn it over when they start dribbling around.

 

[TheMookieMonster]

Good against North Kentucky?

I mean he had 20 points and 9 rebounds against Kansas who is the #9 defense on KenPom. He also had 20 points against Rutgers. He’s won SEC freshman of the week 3 times already. I just think it’s a little early to be pulling receipts on anyone about anything related to this team.

 

[UTFanForLife]

Ament leading all SEC Freshmen in scoring and #9 in NCAA. Also averaging 7.9 rebounds per game. Way too early for all the hate he is getting around here.

 

[VolsAgainstTheWorld15]

Just a really lousy showing. If it was just a case of a lid being on the rim, it would still be frustrating but something I could deal with. The effort - or lack thereof - is appalling and completely unacceptable.

 

[vols 30]

It’s one half of bad basketball in early December. We really going to do this? He’s been good to start the year.

That's debatable

 

[TheMookieMonster]

That's debatable

Debatable that he’s been good early in the year? No it’s not. He’s been good. You can say he’s been inefficient at times with his FG%, but he’s been good.

 

[vols 30]

Debatable that he’s been good early in the year? No it’s not. He’s been good. You can say he’s been inefficient at times with his FG%, but he’s been good.

He's good at drawing fouls. Everything else is a struggle

 

[Skooter]

Ament is flat out soft. 2-10 with 7 turnovers, not to mention defense that makes Knecht look like Mashack. Woulda been better off if he didn’t play a minute.

 

[johnfnkelly]

Debatable that he’s been good early in the year? No it’s not. He’s been good. You can say he’s been inefficient at times with his FG%, but he’s been good.

What exactly is he good at?

 

[VolsSportsFan]

Well all the hype from the Houston win has officially evaoporated. The KU loss was explainable. This one....is not.

 

[berryvol]

Last 2, but especially this one, have really brought me back to earth on this team. Still think they have all the pieces to be great, but they’re just not very good on a consistent basis at this point. I think we can safely say the offensive consistency/scoring concerns we all had after the first 5 cupcakes are fully legitimate.

We also have no one playable at the 2 guard other than Boswell and we need him to step up and be a more aggressive on offense. He’s crafty enough to get inside and finish, JG can’t be the only perimeter player looking to do that for most of the game. Abram is fine, but the other guys at 2 are full on unplayable.

Team needs to grow up fast - it’s about to get a lot tougher and fast. I believe they can. Saturday feels like a big early season fork in the road game.

 

[Vol49er]

Well all the hype from the Houston win has officially evaoporated. The KU loss was explainable. This one....is not.

I think either is perfectly explainable in isolation, but dropping two in a row like this is rough. Really need to beat Illinois Saturday just to get some mojo back if anything else

 

[TheMookieMonster]

Ament had a terrible game, but putting this loss entirely on him (which many of our fans will try to do) isn’t fair. It was a full system meltdown outside of Carey.

Gillespie isn’t going to be the defender that Zakai was he was brought in to score. He had 10 point and was 0-3 from the perimeter. Cade Phillips looks like he sat on his hands all summer. I expected more of a jump forward from him after another full offseason, but he’s been pretty bad to start the year. Burg is simply unplayable right now. He adds nothing to the team.