1. I said it repeatedly yesterday and today, this league is so damn tough, you take any win you can get no matter that fashion…that was a Florida team that came in short handed, really needed a marquee win, and they let it fly from deep with zero conscious, fighting back and winning that game isn’t to be taken for granted. I’m sure there will be plenty of folks saying we should’ve won by 50, blah blah blah, again, conference game against a team really needing a W, sometimes you’re going to get their best shot and when that happens you find a way to win, and Tennessee did just that.
2. The offense looked as good as it has in awhile, the turnovers especially in the first half were way too many and made this more of a game than it probably should’ve been, but overall the offense showed some life. 1.12ppp offensively and an EFG of 55.5%, both of those numbers are very good and above our season averages…46% from deep and 94% from the line are great signs. Again the turnovers brought those numbers down some and those have to get cleaned up, but was a step in the right direction. I don’t expect to shoot 94% from the FT line but Chandler had to be better and to his credit he was, 6/6 tonight, Vescovi matched him, that’s great to see as those guys are going to get plenty of opportunists between them.
3. Defensively that was only the 3rd opponent all year to go over 1ppp on us, part of it was them shooting a large numbers of 3’s and hitting a decent percent but again our turnovers didn’t help that matter much. Tennessee went almost solely small ball in the 2nd half which matched up much better with what Florida was doing, this was a big part of Florida going from 52%fg to 35%fg and 44%3pt to 18%3pt…Barnes is a bit stubborn to go small ball and I’m afraid at some point it’s going to cost us a game, it was clearly the move tonight but it took him too long to make that switch imo.
4. Continuing off the end of the previous thought, small ball is where this team will succeed…rotate bigs based on matchups and ride a hot hand. JJJ gives you 9rbd tonight, Zeigler gave you 6rbds which is incredible, we out rebound them by 10 yet played our small ball lineup the majority of the time. We are better defensively in it, we get much better spacing offensively and we tend to get out and run a bit more in it as well…maybe it’s for fear of foul trouble that Barnes doesn’t want to start out in it but imo he should make that move.
5. For anyone who has said Vescovi wouldn’t start on half the SEC teams, or that he isn’t athletic enough to play in SEC or that a good team wouldn’t have him playing etc etc. all of you were wrong. He’s really finding his shooting stroke and he’s now turned into a really damn good defender as well, add in the improved conditioning and driving ability and he’s playing like a potential 1st or 2nd team All-SEC player. After tonight he’s now shooting 45% from deep and averaging 16+PPG, his release has gotten quicker and Tennessee needs to be finding him 10 attempts a game at this point.
6. The post play is frustrating and I’m not sure there’s an answer, which is why I further say go small…Plav was a no show tonight other than some fouls and a T, BHH didn’t look like he could play in this one, ON had a play or two but continually got beat defensively, Fulk was probably the best defender of the bigs and made some key plays down the stretch offensively…but next game he will likely disappear. I can’t imagine how frustrating this is for Barnes, it’s frustrating to me…at this point you gotta make a call and kinda ride with it, like I’ve said repeatedly I would go small and just try and find a hot hand in the post game by game and ride it.
7. 3 games ago entering this 4 game stretch I said that 2-2 would need to be the floor to keep the feeling of a Top 25 team, I said 3-1 would obviously feel better and that would be the result more of a Top 15 team, well we are 3-0 and head to Austin for a kind of nothing to lose resume building type game. Regardless of that outcome Tennessee has gone on a nice little SEC run and will have a chance to continue that, they find themselves in the thick of the SEC race and in a good position to get a Top 4 seed. Vols sit at 14-5(5-3), I said 21-9 was a good goal a couple weeks ago, would mean going 7-4 down the stretch, with the way they’ve taken care of business the last few weeks now 22-8 is becoming more likely a goal, hopefully the Vols can continue the momentum.
GBO!!!
