Author Archives: Will Shelton

The most telling statistic for Tennessee this year is how many threes they make. Tuesday’s 20-point win over South Carolina included 7-of-21 from the arc for the good guys, making Tennessee 10-0 this year when they hit 26+% from three and 1-4 when they don’t.

But over the last three post-PB&J seasons, the most telling trend overall might be what the Vols allow on the offensive glass.

The Vols have lost four straight to LSU, three of them in Baton Rouge. And we’ve dropped six straight to Auburn, three of those on the road plus one in the SEC Tournament.

Compare that to our oldest rivals from Kentucky, where Rick Barnes is 8-6 since arriving in Knoxville, and 3-1 in our last four trips to Rupp Arena. No Tennessee coach has ever enjoyed this kind of success against Kentucky, regularly the most talented team in the league.

The Cats certainly haven’t played as fast in the past, but I don’t think physicality has ever been an issue for them. If anything, I think there’s an important style point here.

Auburn and LSU were both in the Top 15 nationally in offensive rebounding percentage in 2020, Auburn again in 2021. Unlike previous versions, this year’s Bruce Pearl squad is defense-first, and perhaps more willing to make that trade to get guys back on that end of the floor, where they lead the nation in blocked shots. But we’ve got until February 26 to figure them out. LSU is 37th, and grabbed a dozen offensive rebounds against us, a season high allowed by the Vols.

And from the data at Sports-Reference, that’s a good place to start. In the last three years, Tennessee is 6-15 when allowing 10+ offensive rebounds. It drops to 2-9 at 11+.

Those 15 losses with 10+ offensive rebounds allowed? That’s 56% of Tennessee’s total losses the last three years. It includes all three losses to LSU, Auburn, and Alabama in that span. It also includes Villanova this year, Oregon State and the dreadful performance at Florida last year, and the Memphis loss in 2020.

Noticeably absent from the list? Kentucky. The Cats had anywhere from five to nine offensive rebounds against the Vols in our last four meetings, each won by the road team. Throughout Barnes’ tenure, the Vols have found regular success with undersized post players against Kentucky: not just Grant and Admiral, but Armani Moore and John By God Fulkerson.

So we’re going to find out real quick about this hypothesis on Saturday, because when it comes to offensive rebounds, Oscar Tshiebwe is the final exam.

You never know what kind of pro someone will be. But if you’re just looking for a great college basketball performance, Tshiebwe is giving it to you almost every night. He’s the current leader in the KenPom Player of the Year standings, putting him on a short list with guys like Carsen Edwards, Brandon Clarke & Rui Hachimura, and Devon Dotson & Udoka Azubuike as the most productive college players the Vols have faced in the last few years.

Tshiebwe averages 17 points and 15 rebounds – five offensive – per game. In 29 minutes. You can beat Kentucky when he goes off, or at least Duke did (17 points, 20 rebounds). Notre Dame (25 points, 7 rebounds) and LSU (8 points, 13 rebounds) kept him one dimensional, relatively speaking. In the last two games, he has 59 points and 30 rebounds against Georgia and Vanderbilt.

Who’s drawing this 6’9″, 255 lbs. assignment? Kentucky surrounds him with three shooters, so it’s not usually a twin towers situation like the Vols have seen in this matchup before. Tennessee’s best defensive rebounder is Olivier Nkamhoua, who’s still giving up 25 pounds here. It’s also a big game for Josiah-Jordan James, who’s been one of the team’s best rebounders his entire career, to help clean things up.

Styles will indeed collide here. Is Tennessee just as susceptible against this Kentucky team as they’ve been against Auburn and LSU in the past when it’s mostly one guy doing all this work on the offensive glass? Could the Vols simply shoot their way past it by getting north of 26%? How much can Tennessee’s own bread and butter – creating turnovers – become a factor in this game?

Our first four SEC road games have been mountainous: Alabama, LSU, Kentucky, then Memorial on Tuesday. That’s followed by a trip to Texas two weeks from tomorrow. It gets easier from there: our last five SEC road games are South Carolina, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Missouri, and Georgia. There’s a concern that Auburn, with both dominant play and a lighter schedule, could build an insurmountable lead in the conference race. If the Vols want to keep pace there, this is a big one to get.

But I’m most interested to see how the things we believe about Tennessee – in the present, and over the last three years – manifest themselves in this game. That Barnes and these guys have created something other than, “It’s Rupp, we’ll lose,” is remarkable by itself. What more will we learn about the Vols this time?

1:00 PM ET Saturday, ESPN, with the Dan Shulman/Jay Bilas/Holly Rowe A-team.

Go Vols.

Alternative title: make more threes!

You already knew that, of course. But the rise in frustration in watching Tennessee’s offense is directly related to their in/ability to make threes…and more than I thought.

When word leaked out after an exhibition that the Vols were jacking 40+ threes, optimism reigned. Modern basketball! Fun to watch! Final Four!

Through 14 games this season, the Vols are 61st nationally in threes attempted as a percentage of their total shots (via KenPom). Last year: 244th. In the vaunted Peanut Butter & Jelly offense of 2019, third overall in KenPom: 324th.

So yeah, we’re shooting more threes. Like a lot more. Like 28.3 per game, when we’re used to taking 19.9 (last year) or 19.3 in 2019 and 2020.

But you’ve noticed how that’s working out for us so far:

We’re shooting it way more often, but not making them any more often. The good news when it comes to effective field goal percentage: from two, the Vols are better than they’ve been in any year under Barnes other than 2019. And so, in part as a result of playing four Top 20 KenPom defenses, Tennessee’s offense is currently 52nd in those ratings. It ain’t great, but it ain’t last year (85th) or 2020 (96th).

But in the three-game SEC opener, from deep the Vols are 7-of-29 at Alabama (24.1%), 10-of-34 vs Ole Miss (29.4%), and 6-of-24 at LSU (25%). And those will get you beat twice and taken to overtime.

That’s the magic number so far, in fact: Tennessee is 9-0 when shooting at least 26% from three, but 1-4 when they don’t (6-of-24 at Colorado).

We’ve seen good and bad performances against good teams: 17.9% against Villanova and 45% (9-of-20) against North Carolina in the same weekend. The Vols were just 7-of-24 (29.2%) against Arizona and, of course, 6-of-40 (15%) against Texas Tech.

Who is Tennessee’s best three-point shooter?

I’m not sure how much they want to increase the outside looks for Nkamhoua; that probably depends on how many minutes he’s spending on the floor in lineups with non-shooters like Fulky or Plavsic. A group with Josiah-Jordan James at the 4 and Nkamhoua at the 5 is Tennessee’s fourth-most common lineup in the last five games via KenPom. As we know, Tennessee’s overall rotation varies heavily from night to night at the moment.

Among regular shooters, Justin Powell has the team’s best percentage. But his minutes have been streaky: 26 vs Arizona, then 15 at Alabama, then 22 vs Ole Miss, then just 10 at LSU. In this stretch he’s 3-of-9 from deep.

Vescovi is the most consistent option, and the main reason our shooting hasn’t been worse in SEC play. In 33 minutes at Alabama and LSU and 41 against Ole Miss, he’s 10-of-25 (40%) from three. He’s taken just five two-point shots in those three games, though he did get to the line seven times at LSU. And he pulls up around twice as often as the point guards, sharing the floor with either Chandler or Zeigler almost exclusively. When Jahmai Mashack gets in the game, Vescovi has seen a tiny bit of PG run. But otherwise he’s become both a strong shooter and defender.

You can tinker with the lineups all day, and perhaps Barnes will continue to do so. But nothing would help Tennessee more right now than Josiah-Jordan James hitting open looks. James is Tennessee’s best defender, ranking in the Top 150 nationally in both block and steal percentage. He rebounds well, and he rarely turns it over. And the Vol offense can create lots of open looks for him, as we saw multiple times in the corner at LSU. He’s just struggling mightily to see it go through the net.

You’ve also got Victor Bailey unable to level up his flamethrower coming off the bench: 4-of-8 against Presbyterian, 6-of-38 (15.8%) the rest of the year. It’s been a difficult season shooting it for a guy who hit 33.8% last year and 39.8% at Oregon in 2019.

You can always simplify things down to the Cuonzo Martin school of, “We didn’t make shots.” So yeah, make more threes: particularly Josiah, and either Bailey finding his shot off the bench or Powell playing more. Some of this will come down to lineups. Some of it will come down to open looks that just need to go in more often.

It’s good news, overall, that if Tennessee just gets north of 25% from the arc – not a huge ask! – so far, they win. Almost all of the other pieces are there, and the eye test doesn’t show a lot of bad shots going up. But when shots aren’t going down, as has been the case to open SEC play, it seems to be contagious, with only Vescovi immune.

How do we bust the slump? The Vols will have to figure it out against Frank Martin, then at Rupp, then at Memorial, then LSU again, then Florida, then at Texas. The league is good; its only teams outside the KenPom Top 100 we don’t play until February 22 and March 1. Tennessee has the makings of a good basketball team too. We just need to see some threes go in.

Go Vols.

When last we met in the SEC Tournament, the Vols were in a similar predicament. John Fulkerson didn’t play, knocked out of the Florida game the day before. And a shorthanded squad played hard and well, led by Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer. Those two gave 36 minutes; Yves Pons played 39. Tennessee fought but fell, 73-68. But we took it as a good sign headed to the NCAA Tournament.

Against Oregon State in the first round, there was still no John Fulkerson. Yves Pons got in foul trouble, picking up his second with 12:08 left in the first half and the Vols down seven. And before the half was done, the Vols trailed by as many as 19. When missing multiple key pieces, the lineups were unsettled and the Vols had no response for a hot-shooting 12 seed. Uros Plavsic played 10 minutes and scored a single point. Olivier Nkamhoua played six minutes and did not score. E.J. Anosike played more than three minutes for the first time in five weeks. It was a mess, with lineup wheel of fortune one of the most consistent pieces in an inconsistent year, and thus a fitting end.

Last night, Tennessee went without its highest projected draft pick and its veteran hero. Nkamhoua played 33 minutes. Plavsic played 19. The Vols shot just 7-of-29 (24.1%) from the arc.

Yet the Vols were right there all night, ultimately falling to a Bama team that hit three of its seven threes in the last 4:18.

Losses are bad, etc. The SEC should be ultra-competitive, but an extreme scheduling advantage for Auburn has given the Tigers a two-game edge in KenPom projections after one night. We’ll see if or how long covid makes every night an adventure.

But we learned these Vols are not only game for this kind of adventure, but capable. Nkamhoua gave 15 and 9, and hit a clutch three down the stretch. Plavsic had nine rebounds and went 6-of-8 at the line. Zakai Zeigler was just as fearless and effective even without Chandler on the floor at the same time.

There’s a truth about Rick Barnes’ program that continues to work its way through: guys get better, especially when they’ve been in the program for multiple years. Nkamhoua is a legitimate factor on this team every night, regardless of who’s healthy. Santiago Vescovi has become a force on both ends of the floor, getting three of Tennessee’s 10 steals, again, without Chandler. It creates excitement for what guys like Zeigler and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, huge in the first half, can be in the future.

But in the present, Tennessee isn’t overly bold or foolish for suggesting they’ll actually play anybody, anywhere, anytime. This bunch went to Tuscaloosa without its two best players and almost won, and would have if they made open threes. It’s a costly loss in the hunt for the SEC title. But for the grand scheme of this season, it’s another good sign.

Go Vols.

How do you measure the strength of this league?

For the SEC, the national answer has long been associated with what kind of year Kentucky is having first. I’m not sure how much oomph Florida still gets for its back-to-back national championships, now 15+ years ago, but the Gators have carried the banner at times as well.

2006 is a number that matches up well for both the league and Tennessee, with Bruce Pearl’s arrival carrying us into an era of greater success. And since that time, the SEC has had eight teams finish in the KenPom Top 5. That’s always met with varying ultimate success in a single elimination sport. But Florida and Kentucky traded off opportunities at the top: the Gators obviously had Top 5 KenPom teams in 2006 and 2007. John Calipari’s first Kentucky team with John Wall and Demarcus Cousins finished fourth in 2010. Kentucky won it all in 2012 and was two games away in 2015. And between those two years, Florida went 32-4 in the SEC, finishing in the KenPom Top 5 in 2013 and 2014.

The Cats were back in this hunt in 2017, finishing fourth. But since then, the balance of power has shifted. It’s a convenient timetable for us, as the Vols returned to the national scene in 2018. But we haven’t come alone.

In the last four seasons, no SEC team has finished in the KenPom Top 5; no national superpower to sway perception. But the league has found the size of its top tier increasing dramatically.

Since 2006, the SEC has had 3+ teams finish in the KenPom Top 20 just four times:

• Three in 2012: Kentucky’s national championship season also featured a more youthful version of the Florida teams that would dominate the next two years; the Gators were a 7 seed but made it to the Elite Eight. And this was the last great Vanderbilt team (Jenkins, Taylor, Ezeli), now a decade old.
• Three in 2014: The value of getting hot late. Florida ran through the league undefeated, the best team in the land before falling in the Final Four. Kentucky was an eight seed, but they made it all the way to the title game before also Shabazz Napiered. And the Vols barely got in via Dayton, then almost made the Elite Eight. That triumvirate all finished in the Top 15 in KenPom; the next best SEC squad was Arkansas at 44th.
• Four in 2019: Tennessee’s best team in KenPom had company: Kentucky was eighth, the Vols 10th, Auburn 11th, and LSU 19th in the 2018-19 season. We’re coming back to this point in just a moment.
• Five in 2006: Florida wins it all, Big Baby’s LSU squad makes the Final Four via an overtime win against Rick Barnes and Texas, and the Vols surprise everyone by earning a #2 seed. Plus Arkansas and South Carolina finished 19th and 20th, the Gamecocks by way of two dominant performances in Madison Square Garden to win the NIT.

I’d argue the most interesting basketball for your league comes not from having one or two elite teams, but four or five really good teams. We saw in 2019 how many of those really good teams had a chance to advance deep into March. And heading into league play this year, we could be looking at the same thing.

Right now in KenPom: Tennessee, LSU, Kentucky, and Auburn go 9-12. And Alabama is 18th.

When we talk about playing Villanova or Arizona as a Sweet 16 or Elite Eight feel? Coming in, the Vols should get regular chances at those kind of games in league play too. And right away:

The bottom of the league isn’t great with Georgia and Missouri. The middle…well, I’m unsure how many teams are in the middle. I don’t know if the league will go five deep or eight deep in the NCAA Tournament.

And I’m not sure if one of the top tier teams in the league will separate themselves and earn a #1 seed. But that’s in part because those teams are going to see each other on such a regular basis.

And again, right away: on Wednesday, LSU is at Auburn at 7:00 PM, the Vols in Tuscaloosa at 9:00 PM. If you love SEC Basketball, this looks like an incredible year, one of the best of our lifetimes.

And Tennessee should be in the thick of it.

Arizona came into the game as the number one overall seed in Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology. The thought there is they had the best chance to put together the kind of resume that earned the top seed on Selection Sunday. I don’t know if they’re the best team in the land; the defending champs are still undefeated, Purdue and Gonzaga might have a say, etc. But they’ll have every opportunity to be in that conversation. And that’s still the case after tonight; they remain a one seed in the predictive bracketology. It is undoubtedly a team in the top line conversation.

Which, of course, makes it an incredibly impressive and valuable win for Tennessee. One that makes you believe they’ll have a chance to get one against anybody, and play their way towards that top line themselves.

It was a unique kind of win, one where you get the most fun part out of the way early. The Vols led 9-0 after three minutes and 16-2 two minutes after that. It was 22-7 at the under 12. I’m not convinced Tennessee did anything incredibly wrong from there. Arizona stopped being so generous, and started being Arizona.

But when they cut it to five with 1:42 to play in the half, Tennessee went nuclear: an and-one from John Fulkerson, a three from Santiago Vescovi, and a bucket from Kennedy Chandler, all in the final 1:02, pushed Tennessee’s lead back to 13 at the break. The Wildcats turned it over a dozen times in the first 20 minutes.

They only turned it over five times in the second 20 minutes, which is how an offense like theirs scores 21 points in the first half and 52 in the second.

In two minutes, the lead was down to five. Josiah-Jordan James took the lead here, splashing a three and following up with a two. A Vescovi trey pushed Tennessee’s advantage back to 12 a minute later.

A little more than a minute later, it was back down to four. In this stretch, Kerr Kriisa just started stepping into threes, and they loved him back. For an Arizona team that got four points from Christian Koloko and six from Azuolas Tubelis inside, Kriisa and Benedict Mathurin had to carry the load, and they were fully capable.

But again, James was there with a timely three. Vescovi added seven of his 15 points in this stretch.

And John Fulkerson started to heat up.

A Vescovi three made it 60-48 with 8:17 to go. By this point, you had to assume Arizona wasn’t going away. Koloko got his first points with seven minutes to play to cap another 7-0 spurt, cutting it to five. Fulkerson stopped the bleeding with an immediate answer.

The stretch Arizona will wonder about came next. Justin Kier hit a three to make it 62-60 with 6:12 to play. They got a steal, but missed the front end of a one-and-one. They did it again the next time down, but got the offensive rebound and Koloko tied it at 5:08. Kennedy Chandler hit one of two to make it 63-62 Vols. Kriisa missed a three, then Mathurin missed at the rim on their next two trips.

The talking point may become the quick technical foul assessed to Kriisa on the following possession, allowing Justin Powell to hit three of four free throws. But in the stretch preceding it, Arizona’s offense came up empty on three possessions with a chance to take the lead.

They’d never see it not because their offense continued to struggle, but because John Fulkerson took over in crunch time.

Kier hit a three with 3:59 to go to erase the advantage of Powell’s free throws, leaving the Vols again up by one. Fulkerson hit one of two at the line, then Mathurin hit both of his to tie it 67-67 with 2:58 to play. Fulky was there with a high-arcing turnaround to put the Vols back in front 69-67. And at this point, Tennessee was looking for him as their first option.

An Arizona turnover led to two Fulky free throws and a four-point lead with 2:15 to go. Tubelis scored to cut it to two. The Vols survived a missed three from Kriisa the next time down, another chance to take the lead. With a minute to go, Kennedy Chandler cleared it out.

It didn’t work. It didn’t work most of the night for Chandler, who went 2-of-14. But Fulky was there:

And to bring it full circle, the Vols got a spectacular block from Josiah-Jordan James and a steal from Kennedy Chandler on Arizona’s next trip, sealing the deal on the defensive end.

The result: a 77-73 win over #6 Arizona, the sixth Top 10 win for Rick Barnes at Tennessee (four over Kentucky plus #1 Gonzaga). The Vols took away Arizona’s size inside, largely by getting it into foul trouble: six points in 13 minutes for Tubelis, four in 19 for Koloko. The Vols, one of the least active teams in the nation it getting to the free throw line, shot 27 in this one; 12 from Fulkerson. And big John finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds, and only two turnovers.

There are going to be some teams that simply have no answer for Kennedy Chandler. We’re seeing, increasingly, that the very best teams we face will probably not be among them. There are going to be some nights when Tennessee’s shooters are on, and things look very easy. But the Vols hit just 7-of-24 (29.2%) in this one.

But best believe ole #10 can still be the reason we get one like this too. And getting one like this means you can believe the Vols can get one against anybody.

Saturday was the game we had to win from a fan perspective; such is the nature of rivalry. And while the Tennessee/Memphis series seems destined for hiatus, the rivalry itself picked a mighty fine ending to sustain animosity for years to come. It seems our only hope of settling this one on the floor is in the NCAA Tournament, provided Memphis can actually make one.

Clearly, we lament the lost opportunity. But from a resume perspective, Wednesday was always the one to get.

That’s true for Arizona too, who on Tuesday morning was projected as the number one overall seed in Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology. After this one, the Wildcats go into Pac-12 play, where they will find compelling competition from UCLA and USC…but little elsewhere. If you’re making the case for Arizona as the best team in the land on Selection Sunday, a win in Knoxville to pair with the 83-79 victory at Illinois would be a key piece of the puzzle.

Meanwhile, the Vols will get plenty of other chances to beat Top 20 KenPom foes, with remaining games against Alabama, LSU (x2), Kentucky (x2), Auburn, and Texas. But, as noted, this might be the best team we play all year.

That they might indeed be the best in all the land is a large feather in the cap of Tommy Lloyd, who spent two decades as an assistant with Mark Few at Gonzaga. It surprised to me realize Sean Miller was at Zona for a dozen years; he took them to the Elite Eight in 2011, then again in 2014 and 2015. But in the last six years, they only made the Sweet 16 once, and self-imposed a tournament ban last season en route to Miller’s termination tied to the NCAA investigation. They were 17-9 (11-9) last year, 29th in KenPom.

They were 47th in this season’s opening projections. They leapt into the Top 30 via a 52-point beat down of North Dakota State. In Las Vegas, they beat Wichita State in overtime to face #4 Michigan. And they dropped the hammer in an 80-62 victory, getting 22 points from 7’1″ Christian Koloko.

In their first true road game, they beat Oregon State by 35. In their second, at Illinois, Koloko was held to four points. But they won anyway behind 30 from Bennedict Mathurin, an 83-79 victory to vault them into the Top 10 and the top lines of bracket conversations.

Lloyd has them looking like Gonzaga in their ability to put elite big men on the floor together and still run a modern offense. Gonzaga does this with Drew Timme and Chet Holmgren, who go even larger than the Rui Hachimura/Brandon Clarke combo we saw three Decembers ago. Arizona puts Koloko on the floor with 6’11” freshman Azuolas Tubelis, who will let one go from three. They’ll spell those guys with 7’0″ Oumar Ballo. And they’ll regularly put four guys on the floor at 6’6″+.

In doing all this, Arizona runs the third-fastest pace in college basketball, with the third-highest assist rate. And, as you might expect, these dudes make it very difficult to score at the rim.

It’s easier to tell you where they’ve been lucky than what they’ve been bad at, which is very little. Michigan shot 1-of-14 from the arc against them. Opposing teams are only hitting 61.3% of their free throws against them; Michigan and Illinois were both below 70%, but nothing crazy. The Illini went bombs away, knocking down 16-of-36 (44.4%) from the arc…and lost. Again, there’s a Gonzaga-like feel in looking at them, thinking you can play really well, and still get beat.

If there’s good news: Rick Barnes has had relative success against Gonzaga. His first two teams here were feisty in defeat to the Bulldogs. And, of course, Tennessee got the best of #1 Gonzaga three years ago in Phoenix, the best team the Vols have beaten in the KenPom era. That took a Herculean effort from Admiral Schofield; if Tennessee gets Arizona tomorrow, we may be talking about someone else in heroic fashion.

The best teams we’ve faced have gone on to lose to even better teams: Texas Tech to Gonzaga by 14, Villanova to Purdue by six and then Baylor by 21 (and then Creighton by 20, yikes). Our best win is North Carolina, who just got touched up by Kentucky 98-69. Colorado gets Kansas tonight; we’ll see if they can play their way above the bubble.

The SEC will provide a regular dose of, “How good are we?” But if you’re looking for the top-line conversation we thought we were having against Villanova, this one may be as close as we get all year. What can Tennessee do against one of the best and hottest teams in the land? How do the Vols, who played their best basketball of the year with three point guards on the floor against UNC, handle elite size? And if we do indeed have one of the best defenses in college basketball, what will it look like against this offense?

Much to learn here, and much to gain. Memphis will still be in the atmosphere this week. But Arizona will tell us much more about Tennessee.

Wednesday, 7:00 PM, ESPN2.

Go Vols.

Sports are a regular reminder of the seasonal nature all things possess. Yet within them, there’s something that feels so constant. We’ve played Alabama every October since 1928. And if that number looks funny to you too, it’s because we’re coming up on the 100th consecutive such occasion, if you don’t count the minor inconvenience of World War II. We play Florida in September unless there’s a pandemic or a national tragedy. We’ve faced Kentucky in basketball every year since 1954. These are the games you want to win the most.

But none of our rivalries land so many punches on so few thrown, fists balled up or otherwise, than this one. Tennessee and Memphis have met a grand total of 27 times. Saturday will make 28. And we’re not sure when we’ll see 29.

For that, above all…we have to win this game.

We faced these stakes eight seasons ago, the last of eight in a row (plus one in Maui) featuring constant rhetoric from John Calipari and Josh Pastner. That set was tied 4-4 when the Tigers came to Knoxville to face Cuonzo Martin’s second team, jumped to a 21-point lead, and held on to win 85-80. (Remember the all-orange unis? I still like the idea.)

The last departure lasted six years, resolved with a three-game set starting in 2019. The Vols won that one 102-92, then we played its polar opposite in 2020, a 51-47 Memphis victory. Turns out no matter how much you want to win, it’s hard to do so shooting 4-of-26 from the arc.

And now this one in Nashville, which was calling to mind another game in this series.

Eleven seasons ago – Bruce Pearl’s last – a talented Tennessee team raced to a 7-0 start. Then they lost three straight to Oakland, Charlotte, and USC. They beat Belmont by one and Tennessee-Martin by six. And then they lost to College of Charleston by 13.

Meanwhile, Memphis was 11-2, their only losses to Kansas and Georgetown. The Tigers were ranked 21st, the Vols reeling and preparing to sit Pearl for his mandated SEC suspension.

And Tennessee’s talent won 104-84, a game the Vols led at one point by 36.

That was the polar opposite of this one, or so we thought. Memphis, with loads of talent, started the season 5-0. Then they were hammered by Iowa State. Then they lost to Georgia (KenPom #161), Ole Miss (#90), and Murray State (#89). Along the way, Penny Hardaway did an interview with Seth Davis at The Athletic which continues to break my brain. “We’ve got so much negativity in our locker room,” is merely the headline; I highly recommend the rest.

As a Tennessee fan, Memphis was in such a spiral it was concerning, because I worried playing us might be one of the few things left to motivate them. Turns out, playing #6 Alabama will do it too.

Memphis got right on Tuesday night with a 92-78 win at the Bass Pro FedEx. Some of their consistent weaknesses remained, like committing 17 turnovers and allowing 14 offensive rebounds. Some of their consistent strengths did as well: Bama turned it over 20 times, and Memphis crashed with 13 offensive rebounds and 25 free throw attempts.

The biggest difference came on the other end of that equation: Alabama only got to the line a dozen times. The Tiger defense is still 306th nationally in free throw rate allowed, but they kept the Tide at bay for sure.

Tennessee, of course, shoots free throws at a lesser rate than almost any team in college basketball; Memphis isn’t the team to change that against. And they’ve always been long and potentially problematic to score on: lineups putting freshmen Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren on the floor together give them four players at 6’7″ or taller.

But the Vols, still rocking the nation’s best defense in KenPom, will look to feast on the Memphis offense. Iowa State and Ole Miss both forced turnovers on more than 25% of Tiger possessions. That’s the number the Vols average on the year.

In rivalry land, we put more emphasis on the mental than ever. Is Memphis fixed? Do they think they are? Are there any extra feelings left to be felt on Tennessee’s roster from the 2019 comments and the 2020 loss? And what of Kennedy Chandler, originally from Memphis, Tennessee?

But if we’re looking for steadiness, Rick Barnes is a good place to start. In rivalry games, he’s done better than anyone in my lifetime: 8-6 against Kentucky, 7-2 against Florida, 10-3 against Vanderbilt. We want this win, desperately, to close this chapter of the rivalry the right way. Barnes has earned our trust to carry the fight.

Saturday, high noon, Bridgestone Arena on ESPN2.

Go Vols.