Author Archives: Will Shelton

Best chance to win it all since…

In today’s NCAA Baseball Tournament bracket reveal, the Vols were the #3 overall seed. They’ll host an opening regional against Duke, Liberty, and Wright State, with a chance to advance at host a super regional against the team coming out of the Oregon regional. Tony Vitello took the Vols to the North Carolina regional in 2019, where they were vanquished by the Tar Heels. Before that, Tennessee’s last NCAA Tournament appearance was way back in 2005.

Those Vols were the #15 overall seed back then, but took down #2 Georgia Tech in the super regional to advance to the College World Series. In 2001 the Vols likewise went on the road in the super regionals, defeating East Carolina to advance to Omaha. You have to go back to the Todd Helton days in 1995 to find the Vols hosting the equivalent of a super regional; when that team advanced to Omaha they were seeded #5 overall.

So, at least in your bracket, this isn’t just a strong statement from Tony Vitello in his fourth year in Knoxville. This is Tennessee’s best on-paper chance to win it all in the modern era.

How does this opportunity translate on campus? Last week we looked at the relative difficulty of winning the SEC Tournament/Championship Game in the five major sports, something no one on campus has accomplished since the Lady Vols did it in basketball in 2014. That team represents the best on-paper chance any big five team has had to win it all until now, a #1 seed in an NCAA Tournament with the Final Four set for Nashville…but they were bounced by Maryland in the Sweet 16. They made it farther in the bracket the next two years, but fell in the Elite Eight as a #2 seed in 2015 and a #7 seed in 2016.

The softball team last made the Women’s College World Series in 2015 as the #8 overall seed. Their highest overall seed came in 2007 at #5 overall, the year they advanced to the finals and were a heartbeat away from winning the whole thing before falling to Arizona. They were also national runners-up in 2013 as the #7 seed; while the 2014 Lady Vol basketball squad had a better chance on paper, the 2013 softball team is as close as any big five Tennessee squad has come to a national championship once everything played out.

In men’s basketball, in 2019 the Vols were a #2 seed and fifth overall on the seed list. It’s the third time Tennessee has earned a #2 seed in the last 15 years, with the Vols still in search of their first Final Four and second Elite Eight.

What’s the closest comparison in football? Preseason polls are worth little, but the Vols did open the 2005 season at #3. On the field, Tennessee of course won the whole thing in 1998 and came close to playing for another one in 2001, second in the BCS going to the SEC Championship Game. Tennessee hasn’t carried any real opportunity for the national championship into November since 2006, or into October since 2016.

All that to say this: I’m not sure what’s going to happen from here, and this baseball team has already given us plenty coming out of the pandemic. But whatever a bracket is worth, this baseball team has the best chance to advance on paper of any major sport here since the Lady Vols in 2014. Only the Lady Vols can compete with this kind of national seed on campus in the last 20 years; it’s the best on-paper opportunity the baseball team has ever had, and an even better seed than the softball team was ever given.

The Vols are already a great story. But make no mistake: this is a real opportunity.

In Search of a Tournament Championship

When we search for the good old days, we don’t have to go back quite as far as you think. Pat Summitt, Candace Parker, and the Lady Vols finished off their second straight national championship in the spring of 2008, probably the last major mountaintop for the University of Tennessee. But for the athletic department as a whole, consider how good life was in that moment. While the Lady Vols had claimed back-to-back titles, the men’s team was ascending to new heights, less than two months removed from a week at number one and an SEC Championship. The football team played in Atlanta in December 2007. And the softball team was rapidly ascending, having just missed a national championship of their own the summer before.

The apparent weakest link in that moment was baseball: Rod Delmonico wasn’t retained following the 2007 season, but the diamond Vols made the College World Series just two seasons earlier in 2005.

I have a memory from that 2007 WCWS run, though I can’t find it documented anywhere online, of Phillip Fulmer, Bruce Pearl, and Pat Summitt all together in attendance to watch the softball team. It was a picture of not only current success, but what we all believed to be a bright, stable future. Fulmer was 15+ years in, Summitt 30+, and Pearl seemed like someone you’d want to keep around for that long too.

It got away from us in a hurry, of course. Fulmer was out in November of 2008, Pearl in the spring of 2011, with Summitt’s diagnosis soon to follow. We think of the wilderness as football, but the athletic department has been in search of its own cohesion and elite success for 10+ years now.

There have been moments, for sure. Softball found its way back to the Women’s College World Series four times after that near miss in 2007. Rick Barnes has elevated our idea of program success in men’s basketball. And as football resets again, new athletic director Danny White is fond of pointing out how well so many of Tennessee’s programs are actually doing.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in baseball: SEC East champions for the first time since 1997, destined to have a shot to host a regional and super regional. And they’ll take the field in Hoover today in the gauntlet of the SEC Tournament, looking for the type of success that has eluded all of Tennessee’s big five programs for a very long time.

How long it’s been for each in winning an SEC Tournament doesn’t tell the full story, of course, as the longest drought currently belongs to the healthiest program among them all. But it does give us an excellent sense of what kind of history could be made this week.

The last time Tennessee won the SEC Tournament/Championship Game in…

Men’s Basketball: 42 years

  • Last SEC Tournament title: 1979
  • Other SEC teams to win it since then: 10

Aside from things that Tennessee has never done before (Final Four in basketball, national championship in baseball/softball), this is the longest drought on campus. One of the worst parts: the only teams who haven’t won the SEC Tournament since 1979 came to the league via expansion. South Carolina (1992), Missouri (2012), and Texas A&M (2012) are the only programs other than Tennessee who haven’t cut down the nets on a Sunday afternoon in March in the last four decades. The Vols have made it to Sunday four times sinced 1979 (1991, 2009, 2018, 2019), but were thwarted each time.

Baseball: 26 years

  • Last SEC Tournament title: 1995
  • Other SEC teams to win it since then: 9

Tennessee’s greatest baseball success in the Todd Helton/R.A. Dickey era came with some of the weirdest formats, something I’d forgotten until Wikipedia reminded me: the SEC played only divisional tournaments from 1993-95, and the Vols won all three SEC East Tournaments, including the ’95 title on their home field in Knoxville. The league switched back to a full conference tournament in 1996, and the Vols have never won it. Fun fact: neither has Arkansas, the tournament’s top seed this year.

Football SEC Championship: 23 years – SEC East Championship: 14 years

  • Last SEC Championship: 1998
  • Other SEC teams to win it since then: 5
  • Last SEC East Championship: 2007
  • Other teams to appear in Atlanta since then: 7

Just getting to Atlanta is a prize in football, where the Vols haven’t been since 2007. The usual suspects have ruled the SEC West since then, with only Alabama, Auburn, and LSU getting to Atlanta. But in the East, while the Vols have been away, South Carolina (2010) and Missouri (2013-14) broke through, along with Florida and Georgia. The other five traditional powers have all won at least three SEC titles since Tennessee won its last two in 1997 and 1998: eight for Alabama, five for LSU, and three each for Auburn, Florida, and Georgia. Gross.

Softball: 10 years

  • Last SEC Tournament Championship: 2011
  • Other SEC teams to win it since then: 5

The Lady Vols won the SEC Tournament in 2006 and 2011, and made the Women’s College World Series seven times in eleven years from 2005-2015, coming in second place twice. Since then they’ve been bounced in a super regional four times, and knocked out in the opening round twice, including this year. The SEC is vicious in softball, with five different teams winning the tournament in the last ten years.

Women’s Basketball: Seven years

  • Last SEC Tournament Championship: 2014
  • Other SEC teams to win it since then: 2

Not sure if it’ll make you feel better or worse, but since the Lady Vols cut down the nets in 2014 (a 29-5 squad that was third in the AP poll but got bounced by Maryland in the Sweet 16), South Carolina has won six of the last seven SEC Tournaments. Mississippi State took the prize in 2019.

Even for the flagship sport on campus, it’s been a while…which would make a title run in Hoover this week all the more memorable.

Go Vols.

Embrace the Moment

I’ve already watched more Tennessee baseball this year than I have since at least 2005, and maybe 2001. And we haven’t even gotten to the part of the year that a percentage of fans will only tune in for, the old “bad Lady Vol fan” demographic I used to be part of too: if you know they’re going to be in the tournament and should make a deep run, how much attention do you really pay before March? Or June?

The baseball Vols are packing out Lindsey Nelson with post-pandemic glee. But I would imagine no one is enjoying it more than those fans, however many or however few, who have followed the program closely in the 16 years since we last had a shot at Omaha.

It’s an absence a couple years longer than the football program’s from the national conversation, in an SEC sport just as tough, if not more so, to rise in. What Tony Vitello and those guys are doing is truly amazing.

Meanwhile, in football it’s still easier to measure the distance to the bottom than the top:

The “sheesh” is actually worth appreciating in terms of Tennessee’s brand, I suppose. The perception that this is, in fact, the worst it’s ever been for a program of UT’s historical caliber is, in fact, stronger than the reality of where the program’s actually been.

If you’re graduating from UT this month, grew up in the area, and are a lifelong fan…what do you actually remember?

It’s not just that a 21-year-old wasn’t alive in 1998. Do they remember 2007, when they were seven years old? Because since then…

And sometimes in the since then, we say, “Well, at least there were a few good times in 2015 and 2016.” That’s true, including circumstances from 2016 that may never be reproduced in any of our lifetimes between Bristol, 38 unanswered points on Florida, and the hail mary.

But not only did the Vols fail to win the SEC East those two years and fail to ascend any further, they’ve regressed. In SP+, three of Tennessee’s worst four seasons in the last 15 years are 2017, 2018, and 2020.

The other one in that group is 2013, the kind of suffering a first year coach in the SEC might expect. Maybe something similar will happen to Josh Heupel this fall, or maybe the Vols will take advantage of a softer schedule and make the most of it. Maybe it’ll get worse, maybe it’ll get better.

But being +34 at Alabama isn’t a sign of new depths. It’s a reflection of what’s been Tennessee’s reality for long enough to be named and accepted, which, again, is usually the best way to start moving forward.

Via covers.com, here are the biggest closing lines the Vols have faced in the post-Fulmer era:

YearOpponentLine
2017Alabama36.5
2019Alabama34.5
2018Georgia30.5
2009Florida30
2018Alabama29.5
2011Alabama29
2013Oregon28
2013Alabama28
2019Georgia24
2020Alabama21.5
2014Alabama20

Seven of those 11 belong, of course, to the Crimson Tide. Six of those 11 belong to the last four years.

At this point, it’s not new that Tennessee is a 4+ possession underdog to Alabama or Georgia. Whatever the Vols accomplished in years three and four under Butch Jones, his fifth season and Jeremy Pruitt’s tenure and removal set the most relevant circumstances Josh Heupel inherits.

So yeah: embrace the moment. This is who the Vols are right now. It’s not just letting go of the 90s or stretching everything back to 2008, it’s acknowledging the depths of the last four years in particular. The Vols are significant underdogs. At this point, the best way forward is to embrace that more than lamenting its relationship to what Tennessee used to be. It’s not that those days are so long ago as much as the days that have been most recent these last four seasons have been most bad.

Embrace the moment.

It’ll always be the best way to appreciate the climb.

Making Progress: Third Downs

When Tennessee went 1-for-11 on third down in the season opener but beat South Carolina anyway, we laughed it off. Fun anomaly! Let’s move on! And the Vols did, going 6-of-13 against Missouri the following week.

As you’ll recall, not much else went right from there. And as far as Tennessee’s offense was concerned, the opening performance at South Carolina was a red flag after all. In 2020, the Vol offense went 39-of-129 (30.23%) on third down, 119th in college football. It was the thing Tennessee’s offense was worst at.

There’s little differentiation between run, pass, short yardage, and long yardage. The Vols simply struggled everywhere on third down last season.

In the past, this kind of extreme struggle on third down was usually attributed to a quarterback injury. In the post-Fulmer era, the Vols have converted on less than 35% of their third down attempts in conference play four times in 12 years (stats via SportSource Analytics). Two of those came in 2011 and 2013. When Tyler Bray got hurt against Georgia and Derek Dooley burned Justin Worley’s redshirt two games later, the Vols went 2-of-14 against Alabama, 2-of-14 against South Carolina, and 4-of-18 at Arkansas. Two years later when it was Worley who went down with injury, Josh Dobbs was thrown to the fire and went 3-of-12 against Alabama, 2-of-13 at Missouri, and 4-of-13 against both Auburn and Vanderbilt. In both of those cases, playing great opponents (and maybe James Franklin’s best Vanderbilt team) were a big part of the problem.

In 2017, the offense showed signs of third down life early even as the defense was decimated by Georgia Tech: 5-of-12 against the Yellow Jackets, 7-of-13 against Indiana State, 6-of-16 at Florida, 7-of-18 against UMass. We all know how this year ended; the problem here wasn’t converting on third downs, but needing 18 of them against UMass. Still, the Vols were 25-of-59 (42.4%) on third down going into the Georgia game. From there, disaster: 1-of-12 against the Dawgs, 3-of-13 against South Carolina, 1-of-12 again at Bama, plus an agonizing 2-of-13 against Southern Miss. Absolutely nothing worked for this team or its offense in the second half of the year.

But last year the Vols were quite bad throughout, with the exception of Missouri early and Auburn (9-of-15) late. Take a look at the rest of the damage:

OpponentCnvAttPct.
South Carolina1119.09%
Missouri61346.15%
at Georgia41723.53%
Kentucky31225%
Alabama41625%
at Arkansas51533%
at Auburn91560%
Florida41526.67%
at Vanderbilt2922.22%
Texas A&M1616.67%

Gross.

(One interesting note I found that I’m not sure where to put: Harrison Bailey on first down last year went 24-of-26 for 345 yards (13.3 ypa) and three touchdowns. He had the second highest QB rating on first down in the nation.)

In good news: Central Florida has been pretty good at this.

UCF finished 11th nationally last fall at 48.75%, 61st in 2019 at 40.5%, and fifth in 2018 at 50.29%. They’ve won with and without high third down conversion rates, which probably speaks more to their defense than anything else, especially last season. But the idea that Josh Heupel’s offense is big plays or three-and-outs only isn’t the case: this group has been really efficient on third downs.

Also of note: Missouri finished 20th nationally in third down conversions in 2017, and 42nd in 2016. Heupel’s first Tigers struggled in October – 4-of-14 at LSU, 4-of-15 at Florida, 4-of-15 against Kentucky – but had it rolling by November, as Tennessee’s 2016 defense will attest to (11-of-20 against the Vols).

The best way to avoid struggling on third down remains, of course, to avoid struggling on first and second down. In this way, Heupel’s offense is also more than simply big plays: 30% of UCF’s third downs last year required only 1-3 yards to gain for the first down. For the Vols, only 26.5% of their third downs required 1-3 yards to gain, the same number of snaps they took requiring 4-6 yards to gain. One additional note here: Central Florida actually had a higher percentage of 3rd-and-10+ than the Vols did last year (23.75% to 22.8%) despite having a much better offense overall; my assumption here is they were far more likely to throw two incomplete passes on first and second down and face a 3rd-and-10.

For Tennessee, again, it can’t really get worse. But I’m curious to see how much efficiency shows up with this offense in year one, on top of the explosiveness we all know is out there. Will the Vols find themselves in a ton of 3rd-and-10s? Or will this new offense find its way to more success not just through trying to hit home runs, but giving themselves to advance on third-and-manageable?

More in the Making Progress series:

Completion Percentage Allowed

Making Progress: Completion Percentage Allowed

Every offseason, we run a series on where Tennessee can make the most improvement. It’s a good way to examine how the Vols might get better, fastest. And for all the pendulum swing of Jeremy Pruitt to Josh Heupel, the place Tennessee has the most room for improvement from last year is on the defensive side of the ball.

A million years ago, #3 Tennessee played #2 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. It was Peyton Manning’s final game, and even though a win by #1 Michigan in the Rose Bowl the day before had eliminated the Vols from the national title picture, there was still hope an elite 1997 Vol squad could end the season with a huge win over the Cornhuskers. Instead, those Vols succumbed to the Thanos-like inevitability of Nebraska’s triple option: 68 carries for 409 yards, a 14-3 halftime hole quickly becoming a 42-17 beat down. In the third quarter, Nebraska had three touchdown drives of 70+ yards that I’m not sure included any passing plays.

If they had, it would’ve been Scott Frost pulling the trigger. A lifetime later, Frost left Central Florida to return to the alma mater, paving the way for Josh Heupel to get his first head coaching gig and come to Knoxville three years later. College football has changed quite a bit from 1997 to 2021. But the inevitability of another team coming down the field on us was all too familiar last fall.

In 2020, Tennessee’s defense allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete 68.2% of their passes, 125th of 127 teams playing last fall. This is where the Vols have the most room for improvement in 2021.

As the game has evolved, completion percentage is slightly on the rise around the country. In conference play, the national median completion percentage was between 58-59% from 2013-17. The last three years, it’s climbed to 59.4%, 60.6%, and 61.4% last fall. (Stats via SportSource Analytics)

Tennessee’s struggle in this department, somewhat surprisingly, can be traced directly to Pruitt’s defenses. Between Phillip Fulmer’s exit in 2008 and Jeremy Pruitt’s arrival in 2018, Vol defenses allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete 60+ percent of their passes in just two seasons: a depth-depleted group in 2011 (60.9%), and Sal Sunseri’s infamous unit the following year (65.3%). Tennessee was actually pretty good in this department under John Jancek, finishing 15th nationally in completion percentage allowed in conference play in 2014, and ninth in 2015.

But the last three years, Tennessee’s defense has struggled mightily to disrupt opposing passing games: 67.5% allowed in 2018, 61.9% in 2019, and 68.2% last year (again, all numbers in conference play for the apples-to-apples comparison with last fall).

In the last 12 seasons, opposing quarterbacks completed 70+% of their passes against the Vol defense on at least 25 attempts 13 times. Four of those 13 happened last season, and the three highest completion percentages allowed all happened in the last two seasons:

YearOpponentPrimary QBCMPATTPCT
2019GeorgiaJake Fromm242982.8%
2020Texas A&MKellen Mond263281.3%
2020AlabamaMac Jones283677.8%
2015AlabamaJake Coker212777.8%
2013VanderbiltACS/Robinette243177.4%
2012GeorgiaAaron Murray202676.9%
2018West VirginiaWill Grier253473.5%
2020ArkansasFelipe Franks182572.0%
2020FloridaKyle Trask354971.4%
2016Virginia TechJerod Evans202871.4%
2013OregonMarcus Mariota253571.4%
2019FloridaKyle Trask243470.6%
2018MissouriDrew Lock213070.0%

No matter how good Tennessee’s offense could’ve been or would’ve been if the quarterback position had been settled, and no matter how good the Vol defense could be against the run – 27th nationally in yards per carry allowed in conference play! – when teams can routinely drop back and get whatever they want through the air, there is indeed an inevitability to the end result. On third-and-short (1-3 yards) last season, the Vol defense allowed 16-of-18 (88.9%) for 13 first downs through the air. On third-and-medium (4-6 yards), it was 17-of-25 (68%) for 16 first downs.

Tennessee obviously needs to impact the opponent passing game in far greater ways. But the Vols were actually fairly average in getting to the quarterback: 20 sacks over 10 conference games, 67th nationally in sacks per game. Texas A&M is the only game where the defense failed to record a single sack, and they got Felipe Franks four times, despite his 72% completion percentage. So while the Vols can certainly aspire to be more than average in getting the QB, it’s not where the most improvement can be done.

The inevitability of last season certainly felt worst watching teams run routes over the middle of the field. And this is where the struggle may still be quite real, as the Vols are scrambling at linebacker on the depth chart. But whether third-and-short or third-and-medium, you could get what you wanted far more often than not against Tennessee’s coverage last fall. Tim Banks and the Vols will need to scheme it better than Pruitt’s defenses did for three years to improve completion percentage rates. But they’ll also need bodies to run those schemes; it’s a big opportunity and a big task for whoever can get healthy, learn the system, and translate it to something productive in disrupting the passing game.

The good news is, this is where the most improvement can be made. And for fan and team morale, anything better than the inevitability of a completed pass is going to look and feel very much like progress.

Heupel’s Year One: First Draft

Year one speculation is a bad idea, especially bad when you’re coming off a pandemic season, are facing the newness of the transfer portal, and are in your fifth year one since 2009. But hey, let’s give it a try!

Josh Heupel is also burdened with uncertain penalties via the NCAA. He should be less burdened with fan expectations, which previously went something like this:

  • Kiffin: New and different, brash in ways that made you defend him basically every day of the off-season, recruiting well enough to be excited, and the Vols were still just two years removed from Atlanta.
  • Dooley: We love you, because you aren’t Lane Kiffin.
  • Butch: Recruited well enough to raise expectations before his teams played a game, and knew going in that a single win over a ranked opponent would be more than Dooley was able to accomplish in three years.
  • Pruitt: Nevermind all that, and nevermind all the drama, now we’ve got a football coach’s football coach! That should be enough to make a difference, right?

There’s a freedom and, I think, something healthy in the letting go of the past that comes with everything Tennessee’s been through. But there’s also something healthy in the opportunity that’s before Heupel now, not just x years from now when the program is hopefully in a better place.

A couple months ago, Bill Connelly released his first 2021 SP+ projections. We love SP+ because of the value it places on every snap and the way it helps when comparing teams of similar records. But it’s also valuable to us because it’s unbiased, indifferent to whether the Vols win or lose. All of the above make it an early, helpful place to start when thinking about what forward progress might look like in 2021.

Tennessee’s initial 2021 SP+ projection is 6.1 (points better than the average team on a neutral field). That ranks 49th nationally, but for Heupel in year one, I think the more important context is where that puts Tennessee compared to years past:

Tennessee’s 2021 projection doesn’t flirt with the peaks of the Butch Jones era or Phillip Fulmer’s 2006-07 seasons. But it would qualify as UT’s second-best season in the last five years. And it would give our last three year ones a run for their money.

Kiffin’s first and only year is an odd comparison, mostly because of its recency to the good old days. And though that team was stout in SP+, in still only finished 7-6. But the others – Derek Dooley in 2010, Butch Jones in 2013, Jeremy Pruitt in 2018 – still offer similar goals and possibilities to what the Vols will be after in 2021.

Dooley’s year went the most predictably overall, though it was two after-the-buzzer losses away from going even better. Looking at the schedule, we thought the Vols might start 2-6 and have to win four in a row to get bowl eligible, which is exactly what they did. “Get to a bowl game,” is always a good year one goal when you’re starting over; “Get six wins,” might be Josh Heupel’s version depending on NCAA penalties. It’s the most straightforward pass/fail of a coach’s first year.

That was true for Butch Jones, hampered by the most difficult schedule any Tennessee team has faced in the SEC expansion era post-1992. The Vols caught Marucs Mariota and Oregon in Week 2, and drew BCS title game participant Auburn from the SEC West. Overall, the Vols played six teams ranked in the Top 11, five of them in a row. Tennessee beat one, getting #11 South Carolina in Knoxville, and almost beat another against Georgia. Those two performances instantly felt like more than Derek Dooley accomplished in three years. But the season lost its footing at the end in a 14-10 loss to Vanderbilt, costing the Vols bowl eligibility and a chance to declare year one an outright success.

Something similar happened to Jeremy Pruitt, who scored the third-biggest upset of my lifetime via Vegas at +14.5 over Auburn, then beat #12 Kentucky by 17. Success was at hand! Then the Vols lost to Missouri by 33 and Vanderbilt by 25, finishing 5-7.

The good news for Heupel’s year one starts with the schedule. Derek Dooley hosted #7 Oregon in week two, Butch Jones got #2 Oregon in week three, Jeremy Pruitt got #17 West Virginia out the gate. Josh Heupel gets Pittsburgh, in Knoxville.

That helps push Tennessee’s expected win total to a conversation about not just six wins and potential bowl eligibility, but seven as the most likely outcome. This makes for an intriguing year one possibility, even if it always remains a hypothetical due to a bowl ban: if the Vols finish 7-5 and win the ________ Bowl, Heupel would have the best year one of any coach since Phillip Fulmer.

ESPN’s FPI projects the Vols at 6.6 wins, with a 79.6% chance to earn bowl eligibility. And SP+ will put the Vols in that neighborhood as well. You don’t have to pursue any fantasies with Florida, Alabama, or Georgia. And, despite Tennessee starting over again, the same should be true for Bowling Green, Tennessee Tech, South Alabama, and Vanderbilt against us. The Falcons, in particular, are an appealing opener for Josh Heupel’s Vols: 126th in points allowed last season, 125th in preseason SP+ projections.

Two of the remaining five games do lean more than we probably perceive as fans, at least according to FPI and SP+. South Carolina is likewise starting over; the Gamecocks and Vols have played one-possession games eight of the last nine years. But the advanced metrics lean toward Tennessee. And Ole Miss, depending on your age bracket, still doesn’t carry the weight of, “They’re better than us,” in fan expectation. But in the advanced metrics, they do. Depending on how everyone starts, the October 16 tilt in Lane Kiffin’s return to Knoxville could become one of Tennessee’s biggest games of the season. But the Vols project as the underdog, not as an equal.

Equality comes in the other three match-ups, the ones that, from late April, look most likely to decide the ultimate outcome of Tennessee’s season: Pittsburgh, at Missouri, and at Kentucky. They each carry their own punch: the first “real” test for Heupel in week two, a return to his offensive coordinator home in week five, and a chance for revenge against the Cats off the bye week. If the other projections hold, you’re 5-4 before taking these three games into account. Lose all three, and you’re the third consecutive Vol coach to go 5-7 in year one. Win one, and you’re bowl eligible. Win two, and you’ve hit 7-5, with a chance to at least entertain the argument that you’ve had the most successful year one since Fulmer. (And, of course, win all three, and you’re 8-4…which is as good as any Tennessee coach has done in any year since Fulmer.)

We’ll see. But even though there’s plenty working against Tennessee in its fifth year one since 2009, there’s plenty of opportunity to make it the most memorable one since then as well.

How far do one-and-dones advance in the NCAA Tournament?

From a recruiting rankings standpoint, Tennessee’s 2021 basketball team might be the most talented in program history. It’s the only Vol squad of the recruiting rankings era to feature three five-stars (Keon Johnson, Jaden Springer, and Josiah-Jordan James), and now two of them have departed for the NBA Draft as one-and-done players. And on the back end, the draft itself should validate that talent: Keon Johnson is routinely projected as a lottery pick, with Jaden Springer sprinkled throughout the first round. If that unfolds, it’ll be only the second time in school history the Vols had two players taken in the first round of the same draft, following Ernie & Bernie. And Bernard King (7th) is one of just three Vols to ever be drafted in the Top 10, along with Tom Boerwinkle (4th) and Dale Ellis (9th). There’s a lot of history to be made in a few months.

So when we take all that and try to figure out how this team lost as a five seed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament…you get the frustration. But when I started researching how far one-and-dones typically advance in the dance, it turns out the 2021 Vols are a more common tale than you might think.

The one-and-done rule has been in place for 15 seasons now, requiring high school seniors to play at least one year before becoming eligible for the draft. That first year in 2006 was a transitional time: Shawne Williams from Memphis was taken 17th overall, the only true freshman one-and-done of the draft. But the floodgates opened the following season: Greg Oden and Kevin Durant became the poster children for one-and-dones at the top of the NBA Draft, as eight of the first 21 players selected in the 2007 draft were college freshmen. And it’s gone about that way ever since.

Durant is sometimes used in protest against Rick Barnes: the 2007 Longhorns were 24-9 on Selection Sunday, earned a four seed, and were emphatically bounced in the second round by five-seed USC. “Couldn’t make the Final Four with Kevin Durant!”, etc.

Turns out, making the Final Four with one-and-dones is really hard to do, unless you’ve got a bunch of them.

In the last 15 tournaments played under the one-and-done rule, 60 teams made the Final Four. It’s important to note right away: 36 of those 60 Final Four teams had a player selected in the first round the same year (including projected first-round picks from Baylor and Gonzaga this year). That’s 60%. Talent is good!

But only 12 of those 60 Final Four teams had a one-and-done player selected in the first round. That’s only 20%. Only 10 of those 60 had a one-and-done player selected in the lottery, the top 14 picks. That’s 16.7%.

The idea that one-and-dones = tournament success built momentum early: Greg Oden’s 2007 Ohio State team, which we know plenty about, made the title game. Oden went on to be the first pick in the draft, with fellow one-and-dones Mike Conley (fourth) and Daequan Cook (21st) also going in the first round. The following year UCLA rode freshman Kevin Love (and sophomore Russell Westbrook) to the Final Four, while Derrick Rose was free throws away from winning a national title at Memphis. Oden’s NBA career didn’t work out, but the rest of this group – Conley, Love, Rose, plus Durant – has had tremendous NBA success.

Two years later, John Calipari walked through that door to Lexington and immediately brought the model to blue-blood Kentucky. John Wall and Demarcus Cousins fell in the Elite Eight, but went first and fifth in the draft. Brandon Knight went eighth as the Cats made the Final Four in 2011. And then in 2012, the breakthrough: Kentucky won the title with Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist going 1-2 in the NBA Draft as one-and-dones, plus Marquis Teague at 29th (and sophomore Terrence Jones at 18th – again, talent helps!).

Kentucky’s success got Duke in the one-and-done business. The Cats were back in the Final Four in 2014 with James Young and Julius Randle in the lottery. And then in 2015, you had superteams of freshmen: Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns went first, with Trey Lyles (12th) and Devin Booker (13th) also in the lottery, along with sophomore Willie Cauley-Stein (sixth). Thanks to Gonzaga’s defeat in this year’s title game, this is still the best team of the KenPom era, though they lost to Wisconsin in the Final Four. And the Badgers were then vanquished by a Duke squad with three one-and-done first rounders: Jahlil Okafor (third), Justise Winslow (10th), and Tyus Jones (24th).

After the 2015 season, it seemed there was no turning back. But instead, the opposite has happened.

In the last five Final Fours, only Zach Collins (Gonzaga 2017, 10th pick) and, we assume, Jalen Suggs have been one-and-done lottery picks. Tony Bradley, a reserve on North Carolina’s 2017 title team, was taken 28th overall. Malachi Richardson from Syracuse went 22nd in 2016. So in the last five Final Fours, only 10% of participants have featured a one-and-done lottery pick, and only 20% a one-and-done first round pick.

Tennessee needs to make the Final Four before it can worry about winning it all. But when you look at the title teams over the last 15 tournaments, only those 2012 Kentucky and 2015 Duke squads featured one-and-done lottery picks…and again, they both had two of them, plus a third freshman taken later in the first round. If you’re going to go that route, sure, you can win it all with freshmen…but only Duke and Kentucky have been able to recruit at that level, and they’ve only got one title to show for it that way each.

Again: talent is good. Twelve of the last 15 national champions had a player drafted in the first round that same year, and two of the three that didn’t were 2006 Florida and 2016 Villanova, who repeated and won two-in-three years, respectively. Talent is good. But the idea that one-and-done talent should automatically lead to NCAA Tournament success is far more flawed than it was six years ago.

One-and-dones still transition straight to the lottery: in the 2018 and 2019 NBA Drafts, 17 of the 28 lottery picks were freshmen. But when you look at what those 17 freshmen did in the NCAA Tournament:

YearPlayerSchoolPickResult
2019Zion WilliamsonDuke1Elite Eight
2019RJ BarrettDuke3Elite Eight
2019Darius GarlandVanderbilt5n/a
2019Coby WhiteNorth Carolina7Sweet 16
2019Jaxson HayesTexas8n/a
2019Cam ReddishDuke10Elite Eight
2019Tyler HerroKentucky13Elite Eight
2019Romeo LandfordIndiana14n/a
2018Deandre AytonArizona1First Round
2018Marvin Bagley IIIDuke2Elite Eight
2018Jaren Jackson Jr.Michigan State4Second Round
2018Trae YoungOklahoma5First Round
2018Mo BambaTexas6First Round
2018Wendell Carter Jr.Duke7Elite Eight
2018Collin SextonAlabama8Second Round
2018Kevin KnoxKentucky9Sweet 16
2018Shai Gilgeous-AlexanderKentucky11Sweet 16

If you played for Duke and Kentucky, alongside multiple one-and-dones, you made an Elite Eight. If not, you didn’t. Almost half of these guys didn’t get out of the first weekend.

So yes, Tennessee should continue to recruit talented players. But, as Rick Barnes already knows, the idea that you can find breakthrough success on the shoulders of one-and-dones is a struggling one these days. The Vols still need first-round talent, no doubt. But they appear more likely to have tournament success when that talent is developed over multiple years, not recruited and soon-to-be gone.

What’s the best context for this team?

As usual, credit Ken Pomeroy for being on top of it: in preseason, Tennessee’s fresh-faced basketball team rated an even 20.00 (points better than the average team per 100 possessions). The Vols, of course, are now done playing; with a handful of tournament games left their rating will still fluctuate slightly. But at the moment, the 2021 Vols have a rating of 19.85.

Whether using SP+ for football (more on 2021 projections using those ratings soon) or KenPom in basketball, it’s helpful to put Tennessee’s seasons into better historical context. Not all 8-4s are created equal, nor are all five seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

This year in particular felt like such a struggle to define, and still does, because there are so many unique elements. The Vols had what appear to be a pair of one-and-dones, the program’s first and only since Tobias Harris ten years ago. Keon Johnson routinely appears in the lottery in mock drafts, Jaden Springer sprinkled throughout the first round. That’s new for us.

They helped the Vols earn a five seed, where Tennessee promptly lost to Oregon State, who continued to ride an incredible hot hand into the Sweet 16 after winning the Pac 12 Tournament. It was the first time the Vols had been upset in the first round (seeded 7 or higher) since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. That’s new for us.

The freshmen had to carry the weight without John Fulkerson, which they did sensationally well at Rupp Arena and admirably so against Alabama in the SEC Tournament. But when Yves Pons also left the floor in foul trouble against Oregon State, the Vols just looked so lost. It’s a lot to ask for the freshmen on that stage for the first time. The Vols played in the NCAA Tournament without one of their most important players. That’s new for us.

In fact, part of the story of Rick Barnes in the tournament at Tennessee has been bad luck. Kyle Alexander was injured in the first round romp over Wright State in 2018, and didn’t play against Loyola Chicago where the Vols fell to a shot that hit the rim 1234217 times before going in. Officiating squabbles aside, the Vols fell to Purdue when Ryan Cline hit seven three pointers on ten attempts, many of them outrageous. And the Vols fell to Oregon State without the services of John Fulkerson. The tournament has not been kind to the orange and white.

Meanwhile, the teams that have beaten Tennessee have made themselves look even better beyond. Loyola, of course, went to the Final Four. Purdue took the eventual national champions to overtime 48 hours later. Oregon State is still playing and just beat the potential number one overall pick. The Vols may have been the higher seed in each of those games, but the difference between wasn’t as high as we thought going in.

And all of this, of course, falls into the context of the pandemic, brand new and burdensome for all of us. Whether you fire Jeremy Pruitt with or without cause, lose as a five seed, or have a Top 10 baseball team, the pandemic should still get the first and last word on your season.

“Tournament results aside,” is what I want to type, and that’s a funny phrase. The tournament is what all of college basketball builds to. But if you make it pass/fail for your season, you’re going to fail a lot more than you like, especially in the most upset-prone bracket of all-time this year (see also: the pandemic) coming one tournament after the most loaded Sweet 16 of all-time, which happened to happen the year Tennessee had its best team.

That 2019 team still stands alone, both in weeks at number one and in KenPom’s ratings. Here are the tiers we used for Tennessee’s teams in the KenPom era (2002-present) during the preseason – it’s interesting to note where the 2021 Vols will ultimately land:

  • Tier A – The Current Peak: 2019 (26.24 KenPom)
  • Tier B – The Fully Capable: 2014 (23.69), 2018 (22.27), 2008 (22.17)
  • Tier C – The Dangerous: 2021 (19.85), 2006 (19.44), 2010 (18.50), 2007 (18.29)
  • Tier D – The Unnecessary Defense of Bruce Pearl: 2009 (16.48)
  • Tier E – The Bubble (but probably the NIT)
  • Tier F – That’s okay, we’re a football school (Buzz Peterson’s last two years, Donnie Tyndall, Rick Barnes’ first year)

In KenPom, four of Tennessee’s five best teams of the last 20 years belong to Barnes and Cuonzo. The 2021 Vols are fifth on that list, currently first in Tier C, together with 2006, 2007, and 2010 from Bruce Pearl’s era.

I like to think of SP+ and KenPom as, “Who would I least like to face?” And some nights, these Vols fit that bill. They beat Colorado and Arkansas, both in the KenPom Top 15. They famously waxed a pair of AP Top 15 squads at Missouri and vs Kansas. And they still made memories late with back-to-back, emotionally-charged wins over Florida. They won seven regular season SEC games by 10+ points, trailing only 2008, 2014, and 2019.

And they lost three regular season SEC games by 10+ points, trailing only 2007 and 2010 among Tennessee’s recent tournament teams. They played only two one-possession games all year. Their worst lost on the slate is at Auburn, 63rd in KenPom. Only the 2006 and 2019 Vols had a better record there in terms of not losing to bad teams; this team’s “bad” wasn’t as bad as you think.

The main issue is that their good never got to be as good as it was in mid-January. At 10-1 (4-1), the Vols had only lost to Alabama in a game when Jaden Springer got hurt and, again, Pons was in foul trouble. At that point the Vols were sixth nationally in KenPom, and we were having conversations about a one seed and winning the SEC. From there, Springer was still banged up, lineups got weird, responsibilities were shifted, and along the way Tennessee went 8-8.

So, what’s the best comparison for this year? I don’t think there is one.

It has the one-and-done and off-the-court weirdness of 2011, with the mid-season fall of 2001 (so perhaps the lesson is, be careful in years that end with 1). But it also had some truly dominant regular season performances that could be matched only by some of Tennessee’s very best teams, with no very worst losses. It’s not a good comparison on the floor or in the record book, but maybe 2009 is its best counterpart, simply for the way this year doesn’t feel like it belongs with any others.

I remain grateful that they played at all. And more good news is on the way: Kennedy Chandler is Tennessee’s highest-rated signee since Tobias Harris and Scotty Hopson (again, no guarantees, see 2011). Four-star wing Jahmai Mashack joins him in the incoming class. John Fulkerson might be back. Who knows what the transfer portal will bring.

Without Keon, Springer, and Pons, it’ll feel like the ceiling is a little lower going in. But in reality, it’ll be the same question mark from this season as the Vols seek to put so many new pieces in important places.

Under Rick Barnes, Tennessee is giving themselves better chances than ever in terms of talent, beating Kentucky more than ever, and losing to fewer bad teams than ever. And though we thought the bracket was kind going in this year, the tournament itself is yet to return the favor to one of his teams.

At the same time, the tournament will always be the last impression your team leaves. As Tennessee continues to pursue just its second Elite Eight in program history, here’s hoping the Vols can build on what they learned from this year and carry the program’s history forward not just November-February, but in March as well.

Go Vols.

Oregon State 70 Tennessee 56: Loss All Around

It’s not so much that this game represented Tennessee’s worst basketball, though that might be true of the performance. It felt more like a team that struggled in the second half of the year with its offensive identity seemed to lose itself completely during this game. No John Fulkerson, and then no Yves Pons with foul trouble. It was already out of hand when Josiah James exited with a nasty looking ankle injury. And the Vols never found the pieces to put it back together.

You can look at the minutes and see the search: Uros Plavsic early, Olivier Nkamhoua for a long stretch with Pons on the bench in the first half, E.J. Anosike in that role in the second half. Tennessee’s interior defense was completely victimized by Roman Silva as a result: Silva’s season high was six made shots in a game, something he did three times. Today he went 8-for-8. And Oregon State’s hot shooting from the Pac-12 Tournament persisted: 10-of-21 from the arc, 47.6%. In Tennessee’s last five NCAA Tournament games, opponents from the arc shot:

  • Loyola Chicago: 8-of-20 (40%)
  • Colgate: 15-of-29 (51.7%)
  • Iowa: 7-of-21 (33.3%)
  • Purdue: 15-of-31 (48.4%)
  • Oregon State: 10-of-21 (47.6%)
  • Total: 55-of-122 (45.1%)

The Vols allowed 31.8% from the arc all season before today, 35.4% in 2019, and 31.8% in 2018.

So one part of this, much the way we tipped our hat to Ryan Cline upon our last exit, is to credit Oregon State. Not only did they stay hot offensively, they scouted Tennessee very well and attacked with excellence where the Vols were most vulnerable without Fulkerson.

And one part of this is certainly Fulkerson’s absence. In this way too, Tennessee has fallen on the wrong side of luck in postseason play under Rick Barnes, with Kyle Alexander’s sudden absence a factor in the loss to Loyola three years ago.

Things felt up in the air without #10, though Tennessee played so well against Alabama without him you felt hopeful it might show up again. Instead, the Vols got so out of sorts so early, they never recovered. Tennessee’s own three-point shooting was poor, but that’s not the first time we’ve run into that problem this year (or recently, see 3-of-21 against Florida in Knoxville). What hurt Tennessee’s offense more was an inability to get to the line: just 12 free throw attempts, the fourth-lowest of the season. Tennessee’s 10 assists were also fourth-lowest on the year, another sign that things simply weren’t working offensively. In the late frenzy the Vols did push Oregon State over the “magic” 14+ turnover mark at 15, but by then it was too late.

There’s a lot you can say about this one, little of it good. We have little experience without Fulkerson, and no experience losing as this kind of favorite in the first round of the tournament, all of which makes conclusions easier to jump to. The loss is certainly disappointing, as is a first round exit from a 10-1 start.

The thing I am most sure of this year remains the pandemic. And so more than anything, I want to go back and say again how grateful I am that this team played basketball in the first place. I don’t know everything they went through, and I’m sure their disappointment outnumbers our own. But I’m so grateful they’ve been there twice a week for four months. And I’m hopeful the 2021-22 Vols will only be answering questions about the virus in the past tense.

Tennessee vs Oregon State Preview

Our first impressions of Tennessee’s draw were pretty favorable: bid thieves moved some of the more dangerous mid-major champions off the 12 line, and by most any metric you’d rather play Oregon State than Georgetown in that department anyway. It’s easy to look ahead to Cade Cunningham, Illinois, or Sister Jean.

Skipping past the first round is also in our DNA: this is Tennessee’s 15th NCAA Tournament appearance since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985, and the Vols have never lost in the first round as a seven seed or higher. Tennessee is 9-5 in Round 1, going 0-4 in the 8/9 game plus a loss as a 10 seed in 1989. Sooner or later, the first round upset will come for our NCAA Tournament bingo card…so how can we avoid it happening this time?

This is Oregon State’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2016, which was their first since 1990. You always wonder about some, “Happy to be here!” from the bid thieves. But that only tends to be the case about half the time:

Major Conference Bid Thieves, 2008-2019

YearTeamSeedResult
2019Oregon12S16
2014Providence11R1
2013Ole Miss12R2
2012Colorado11R2
2010Washington11S16
2009Mississippi St13R1
2008Georgia14R1

(Here’s a good piece from John Gasaway on this from 2018)

If you exclude our SEC friends from 2008 and 2009, in the last decade major conference bid thieves won at least one game in the big dance four out of five times. Hot teams tend to stay hot.

Oregon State’s run started before the Pac-12 Tournament. After a February 20 loss to Colorado, the Beavers were 11-11 (7-9). They won three straight over Cal, Stanford, and Utah before falling to Oregon in the regular season finale. It took overtime in the Pac 12 quarterfinals to beat UCLA, but then they also took down NCAA Tournament teams from Oregon and Colorado to win the prize.

In the Pac 12 Tournament, Oregon State was the definition of hot team from the arc:

  • UCLA: 10-of-25 (40%)
  • Oregon: 10-of-19 (52.6%)
  • Colorado: 9-of-22 (40.9%)
  • Pac 12 Tournament: 29-of-66 (43.9%)

They shot 33% from three in league play in the regular season. 43.9% is how you advance.

We saw two years ago how any hot-shooting team can give you a run for your money. Not only did Auburn and Purdue hit 15 threes apiece against the Vols in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments, Colgate did it too at a blistering 15-of-29 (51.7%), giving us all we wanted in the first round. Fifteen threes is the most any opponent has hit against Tennessee in the last decade, and three different teams did it over the course of those 19 days. In good news, only one team has hit more than 10 threes against the Vols this year: Vanderbilt went 13-of-33 (39.4%) in Nashville and still lost by 12.

Elsewhere, Oregon State is a team that generally takes care of the basketball: 82nd nationally in turnover percentage, so less likely to play into Tennessee’s greatest strength. They turned it over just 11 times in the overtime win over UCLA, and only six times in the title game against Colorado. They share the ball well, 25th in assist rate. Fortunately for the Vols, they do play into Tennessee’s second greatest strength: the Beavers are 304th nationally in defensive free throw rate. They love to put teams on the line, which can get Tennessee’s offense going even when turnovers aren’t available.

Tennessee never loses as a higher seed in the first round, but hot teams off surprise conference tournament titles tend to stay hot. Oregon State has been launching from three, but the Vols have defended it well all year. And the Vols have been excellent at forcing turnovers, while the Beavers don’t give it away.

In a match-up where it’s hard for either team to lean on its greatest strengths, individual performances can make the biggest difference. Tennessee’s only quality win without a quality performance from John Fulkerson came at Rupp Arena, when Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer went off. Those two almost carried the Vols to victory against Alabama. Is there a scenario where they’re simply better than what Oregon State can throw at them defensively?

In a pandemic year that encourages us to look ahead by default, don’t skip the first round. Survive and advance is still the most important part. I’m curious to see how the Vols will attack.

4:30 PM Friday on TNT, from the home of the Indiana Pacers.

Go Vols.