And, oh yes, we’re going to discuss Rick Barnes being 7-5 against Kentucky at Tennessee, and now the only Vol coach to win two games at Rupp Arena.
But for now, let’s just set all that aside and take this win over Kentucky for what it is on its own.
Kentucky led 42-31 at halftime. They pushed it to 51-34 with 16:53 to go. ESPN, sensing a blowout like the rest of us, went to backup story lines, including John Calipari’s love for being asked about the Evansville loss:
While ESPN showed that clip, the Vols hit a 9-0 run in the background.
We hung out there for a while, the Vols unable to get closer than seven. Neither team made a shot for three minutes, Kentucky turned it over twice, and the Vols turned it over three times and missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Kentucky’s lead was still seven with eight minutes to play.
At that point, John Fulkerson had carried almost the entire load. The Vols were playing a glorified seven-man rotation and still trailed by seven at Rupp. This had all the makings of a great individual performance and another tip of the cap for this team refusing to quit, even if it wasn’t enough.
And then, in a flash, Tennessee had the lead.
Yves Pons rattled home a jumper to cut it to five. Josiah James got a steal and found Fulkerson for an and-one. Kentucky missed on the other end. Josiah James hit a three. Then Santiago Vescovi got a steal and euro-stepped his way to a bucket.
Down seven at 8:19. Up three at 6:13. At Rupp.
And not with the dudes who did something similar a little later in the contest at the SEC Tournament last year, who stared down the Cats in the final minutes and made them blink first. With 27 points from John Fulkerson. With an “oh yeah, that’s why he’s here,” revelation from Josiah James: 16 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover. With five assists and zero turnovers from Jordan Bowden. And 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting from Yves Pons.
It wasn’t done, of course: Kentucky quickly tied it up. But then Pons hit a three. And Pons was there again down the stretch. He scored out of a timeout on a beautiful feed from Vescovi to put the Vols up four with 2:43 to go. Then he put back a Fulkerson miss on the next possession to put the Vols up six. And Fulkerson was there again at the end, keeping a rebound alive for Josiah James to follow hit shot and put the Vols up six again with 1:08 to go.
#Vols coach Rick Barnes on John Fulkerson’s performance tonight: One of the best I’ve seen from anyone I’ve ever coached.
Barnes rolled in here five years ago from nearly two decades of war with Kansas. It’s not that he’s unimpressed with Rupp or Kentucky or whatever. But he’s absolutely unfazed by them. He beat them in Knoxville with teams that finished 15-19 and 16-15. He went 4-2 against them the last two seasons, one win in Rupp and one in Nashville, both alive forever in our memories.
But to do this, with this team, at this point in the season, and down 17 with 16 minutes left when all signs pointed to a “good game” pat on the butt and let’s get ’em next year? At Rupp?
It’s one of the most surprising, most satisfying wins for any Tennessee basketball team I can remember.
The Vols move to 58th in KenPom, and their once-anemic triple-digit offense is now 84th. If there’s a way to quantify that the Vols lost to Florida State on a neutral floor by three, lost at Kansas by six, led at Auburn by, ironically, 17 points in the second half, and just won at Kentucky by eight? That’s the tournament argument. You want to keep having it, you beat Bruce Pearl on Saturday.
We’ll get to all that. But goodness gracious, you take a moment for this one tonight by itself. You lie about going to bed after the first four minutes of the second half. You listen to Barnes use language like, “This is one for the ages,” in the postgame; he knows. But he’s also been good enough at getting us here that we can believe in beating Kentucky. That’s been true in Knoxville for a long time now. Barnes and his players will make you believe it can happen anywhere.
Can you guess how many Quad 1 wins Tennessee has right now?
It’s one: at Alabama on February 4.
In this #anyonecanwin season, Tennessee’s schedule is guilty of a particularly cruel betrayal. For more than a month we’ve been saying if the Vols just get to 18 or 19 regular season wins, the schedule would be there to back them up. Sure, the Vols would need to sweep Kentucky and Auburn this week to finish 18-13 (10-8). But at this point, even that might not be enough.
It would be enough to at least get you in the conversation. The Vols are inches away from a pair of other Quad 1 wins: Florida is 33rd in NET (Quad 1 = Top 30 win at home), VCU 56th (Quad 1 = Top 50 win at a neutral site). Washington broke a nine game losing streak but is still 13-16 (3-13). South Carolina has lost three of four. Arkansas just lost at Georgia. Tennessee’s strength of schedule is stagnant at 50th in KenPom.
It’ll go up this week, with what should be two more Quad 1 opportunities. But would it be enough?
For whatever it’s worth, I can get the Vols in using Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology with the following scenario: beat Kentucky, beat Auburn, beat Texas A&M on Thursday, beat Kentucky on Friday, lose on Saturday. If the committee values what you’ve done lately, that would certainly be a compelling argument. But since that argument includes beating Kentucky twice in two weeks, one at Rupp? We’ve reached the point where any of the scenarios left on the table might be more difficult than simply winning the SEC Tournament.
It’s not impossible, and it’s Kentucky, so yeah, let’s win tonight. It would cement the Vols in the NIT, at the very least, barring total insanity during Championship Week. But the goal for Tennessee remains to keep playing its best basketball, something we’ve seen sustained glimpses of against South Carolina, Auburn, and Florida of late. These Vols will give themselves a chance against anyone they’ll face in Nashville. When they’re facing Kentucky in Lexington?
Mourning the Loss of a Favorite Joke
John Calipari’s 2008 Memphis team shot 61.4% at the free throw line, 329th nationally. You might recall them going 8-of-17 against the Vols in the 1 vs 2 game, or 12-of-19 in the title game.
His first Kentucky team went 66.9%, 16-of-29 in the Elite Eight loss to West Virginia. The 2014 team that ran to the finals shot 68.2%, 13-of-24 in the title game loss to UConn.
The 2015 juggernaut actually shot it really well (72.6%), you just didn’t notice because they didn’t need it. The 2018 group was back under 70% at 69.8%, including 10-of-16 in the loss in Knoxville and 23-of-37 in their tournament loss to Kansas State.
This year’s Kentucky team lost to Evansville and Utah, and gets less credit for winning a down SEC at 14-2 and counting. They’re just outside the Top 25 in KenPom. Unlike the most talented Kentucky teams of Calipari’s run, they need the help at the line.
And good grief, are they getting it.
Kentucky is third in the nation in free throw shooting at 79.5%. And they’re 10th in the nation at getting to the stripe. That’s a problem for everyone else.
The last time Kentucky shot less than 75% at the line was January 18. And even when teams defend them well without fouling, there’s just no mercy: 10-of-10 against Florida, 10-of-11 against Texas A&M in the last 10 days. Tennessee got a dose of this the first time: played well enough to be in it late, Jordan Bowden misses a wide open three that would’ve cut it to two with 2:30 left, end up losing by 13 because the Cats give you no mercy at the stripe, finishing 22-of-25. South Carolina is the only SEC team to get a break here, beating the Cats at the buzzer when Kentucky shot 25-of-36 (69.4%).
(You know who was great at this last year? Tennessee, an underrated 80.1% from the stripe in SEC play.)
At the moment, this is Calipari’s lowest-rated Kentucky squad in KenPom since the 2013 group that missed the tournament after Nerlens Noel went down. But you get absolutely nothing for free against these guys. For Rick Barnes to become the first Tennessee coach to win twice at Rupp Arena, the Vols will need every bit of that best basketball, and as many of those good looks to fall that didn’t go down in the first match-up as Rupp will afford.
Here’s the movie we’ve seen recently when the Vols weren’t in the chase for the national championship:
2015: Donnie Tyndall’s Vols were 14-9 (6-5) on February 11, with an eye on at least the NIT. They lost five in a row, three by 17+, and finished the regular season 15-15 (7-11), missing any postseason opportunity.
2016: Rick Barnes’ first squad was 12-12 (5-6) on February 9, having already faced the hardest portion of the SEC schedule. Kevin Punter had to shut it down, and they lost their last four regular season games to finish 13-18 (6-12).
2017: The Vols were 14-10 (6-5) on February 8, then blew a big lead at home against Georgia. That was the first of five losses in their final seven games, finishing the regular season 16-15 (8-10), then falling to Georgia on the final possession on Thursday in the SEC Tournament.
Thrice, the Vols carried legitimate NCAA/NIT dreams to mid-February. Thrice, they missed both tournaments.
So this year, after excruciating losses on back-to-back Saturdays, when the Vols lost at Arkansas by 17 you felt like you knew how this would go. Tennessee was 15-13 (7-8), under .500 in league play for the first time since an 0-1 start. Florida, Kentucky, and Auburn remained. Any hopes of an at-large bid involved scenarios less likely than just winning the SEC Tournament in Nashville.
But Tennessee came out and dominated Florida for the first 28 minutes.
The Vols led by 15 at the break, holding the Gators to 17 points and no made shots in the last nine minutes of the first half. Florida boasts the league’s second-best offense in KenPom and 30th nationally.
When Florida trimmed the lead to 11 with 15 minutes to play and the ghosts of Auburn stirred, the Vols ripped off an 8-0 run via Fulkerson, Fulkerson, Pons, and Fulkerson on four consecutive possessions. Tennessee led 48-29 with 12 minutes to play.
A pair of Tennessee turnovers sparked a 6-0 Florida run, and this time Barnes did call timeout. Santiago Vescovi responded with a bucket. But this time Florida made back-to-back threes.
The lead was seven at the under eight, then four at the under four. Kerry Blackshear scored to cut it to two. Josiah James – a huge part of the solution in the first half – hit one of two free throws to make it three. Blackshear answered with a pair to cut it to one, 55-54, with 2:55 to go. The Vols couldn’t get a good look, and lost it out of bounds with two on the shot clock.
No problem: John Fulkerson drained his first career three.
It wasn’t done. Florida cut it to two, got a stop, and had another shot to tie or take the lead. But this time they missed with a minute to go and Josiah James grabbed a huge rebound. The Vols didn’t sit on it: Jordan Bowden exploded to the hole, and just missed.
The Vols hit their free throws, and beat Florida 63-58. A Tennessee offense we were lamenting for its limitations, with or without all the turnovers? 52.1% from the floor, 6-of-14 (42.9%) from the arc, and only nine turnovers. Fulkerson took 15 shots, Bowden 11. It’s Tennessee’s best offensive basketball.
The post-Lamonte flaws are still there, the losses at South Carolina and Auburn still hurt. But the Vols, who could’ve folded til Nashville, instead played some of their best basketball of the season, especially on the offensive end. It’s a tough task left – at Kentucky, vs Auburn – but they might yet escape the triple digits in KenPom’s offensive efficiency ratings.
I still think the NCAA at-large arguments require a more complicated scenario (mainly winning at Rupp, though you like catching Kentucky after playing Auburn) than just winning the SEC Tournament. But today was a legitimately big win for Tennessee’s NIT hopes. The Vols go to 16-13 (8-8). You never know about the size of the at-large NIT field, because any regular season conference champion who loses in their conference tournament and doesn’t earn an at-large automatically goes to the NIT. So chaos in Championship Week can shrink it considerably. But last year Alabama got in at 18-15, Arkansas at 17-15, Butler at 16-16. You need to be .500 or better. The Vols shifted hard toward the better today.
The biggest hindrance to an SEC Tournament run: today Josiah James played 40 minutes, Pons 39, Bowden 38, Fulky 36, and Vescovi 34. The Vols got zero bench points. That shouldn’t be a problem next year, but right now this team is incredibly thin offensively, thin plus Davonte Gaines defensively.
There’s also some unsettled SEC Tournament seeding. The top six appear out of reach. But four teams – the Vols, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas A&M – could be a bit jumbled at 7-10. If the Vols get to seven, they’ll avoid Kentucky on Friday.
This whole thing could’ve crumbled – we’ve seen that plenty in the last five years – and it could’ve crumbled in the final minutes; we’ve seen that plenty the last two weeks. But the Vols played hard, played some of their best basketball offensively, and this time did so in victory. It’s a credit to this team and this staff, with yet again so many reasons to look back or look forward, that they turned in such a good performance today.
We use Ken Pomeroy’s numbers a lot around here, and Joel writes a Four Factors preview for each contest. It’s the backbone of Pomeroy’s ratings: how well do you shoot it, how often do you turn it over, how many second chances do you give yourself via offensive rebounds, and how often do you get to the free throw line.
By far, Tennessee’s strength this season has been the way it defends: the Vols are 16th nationally in effective field goal percentage allowed. Their defense is vulnerable on the offensive glass (256th nationally) and in fouling too often (228th nationally), but the Vols do a decent job of forcing turnovers (113th).
And we also know the Vols struggle on the offensive end, more so than most teams we’ve seen around here. Tennessee is 121st overall in offensive efficiency a year after finishing third in the nation. Cuonzo Martin’s first team in 2012 is the only Vol squad to finish in triple digits in offensive efficiency this century (106th); you have to go all the way back to Kevin O’Neill’s tenure to find an offensive efficiency that was (way) worse at 278th nationally (to the surprise of no one who was watching the Vols in 1997).
But the four factor components of Tennessee’s offense aren’t all bad. The Vols are 80th nationally in getting to the line, 91st in offensive rebounds. John Fulkerson does particularly good work here, 57th nationally in free throw rate.
We know this isn’t a great shooting team. It shoots just 30.6% from the arc, with surprisingly poor performances from a number of guys we thought would do more:
Lamonte Turner was 11-of-47 (23.4%)
Jordan Bowden is still just 27.7% on the year after his burst at Auburn
Yves Pons has cooled to 32.5%
Jalen Johnson is at 31.6% off the bench
Davonte Gaines is 3-of-18 (16.7%)
I’ll be curious to see how they develop this aspect of Josiah James’ game: he’s been the most consistent shooter this season at 36.9%, but takes just 2.9 threes per game. And Santiago Vescovi is at 37.2%, taking 5.7 per game.
We also know the Vols exclusively get good offense through good ball movement. The Vols still rank second in the nation in assist percentage, getting a dish on 64.7% of their made shots. This has been a focal point of Barnes’ offense, but the last two seasons (7th nationally in 2018, 24th in 2019) the Vols also had guys who could get their own shot when they had to have it.
This Tennessee offense, with so many moving parts, would be limited no matter what. But what’s making them historically bad is what’s cost them the last two Saturdays, the biggest culprit in keeping them off the bubble: turnovers.
Tennessee turns it over on 20.8% of its possessions, 290th nationally. In league play that number swells to 21.5%, last in the SEC. And the Vols surrender a steal on 11.6% of their possessions (12.5% in league play), which ranks 348th out of 353 Division 1 teams.
That steal percentage is the worst for any Tennessee team since 2002 (11.9%), Buzz Peterson’s first season, when the Vols lost Ron Slay to an ACL tear in mid-January and you had Thaydeus Holden and Jenis Grindstaff trying to run the show; C.J. Watson played as a true freshman the next year. Peterson’s first three teams all had a slightly higher turnover percentage as well, but that’s as far back as you have to go to find a worse turnover percentage than this year.
This is also all so frustrating because we just witnessed the best year of the KenPom era for the Vols in not turning it over: last year Tennessee gave it away on just 15.8% of its possessions, 25th nationally. You can make a really good argument that this team misses Jordan Bone more than anyone.
Some good news: C.J. Watson grew into both an NBA player and the point guard of a team that turned it over very little in Bruce Pearl’s first season (17.6%, 13th nationally). You expect freshmen to have these kinds of issues, especially a player like Santiago Vescovi who just got here in January. And Vescovi is the leading culprit when it comes to turnovers, with the Vols giving the ball away on 29.6% of the possessions he’s involved in. The other leading offenders are also freshmen. Olivier Nkamhoua turns it over 28.6% of the time, and Josiah James is at 28.9% after six costly turnovers on Saturday.
So, yeah. They’re freshmen. They’ll get better. The Vols have been close to good teams and the bubble all year, but when turnovers are your greatest weakness, it’s always going to hurt a little more because it feels like you’re doing it to yourself.
Here’s the full data for turnovers and steals in the KenPom era:
This team plays so hard so often. It gets more from Yves Pons than we bargained for at the start of the year and more from John Fulkerson that we had to have as the year went on. It gets more from Santiago Vescovi than anyone in his situation should be asked to give.
When you throw all that together, even without Lamonte Turner, it became a team that scratched and clawed and fought its way to stay on the fringe, to give itself a chance in the last month of the season to still make the NCAA Tournament. That would’ve been truly remarkable, and the head coach agreed: this week in The Athletic Rick Barnes said of stealing a tournament bid, “It might be the biggest accomplishment we’ve ever had, to be honest with you, with what we’ve gone through.”
Today, at #13 Auburn, Fulkerson picked up two fouls in the first three minutes and sat the rest of the first half. He could, because Davonte Gaines came off the bench and played out of his mind, grabbing five rebounds in the first 20 minutes.
Then Vescovi hit the bench with foul trouble a few minutes later. And a scenario could’ve unfolded where the Vols struggled to function offensively, Auburn found its groove, and the Vols simply didn’t have it. Maybe we never should’ve expected them to have it this year once Lamonte Turner went down.
Instead, we got what should’ve been the Jordan Bowden game: 17 points and five assists in the first half, scoring or assisting on 10 of the Vols’ 13 made shots. He finished with a career high 28 points on just 12 shots.
The Vols led by eight at halftime, got Fulkerson back in the flow, and immediately opened it up to a 17-point advantage, 54-37, with 14:35 left.
Not only were Tennessee’s NCAA Tournament hopes alive, they were kicking. The Vols were in the midst of their best performance of the season, and a rejuvenated Bowden changed our beliefs about this team’s ceiling.
On the other end of the floor, Vescovi was called for his fourth foul. He exited with the Vols up 17. Here are Tennessee’s next nine offensive possessions via ESPN’s play-by-play:
Jalen Johnson turnover
John Fulkerson turnover
John Fulkerson turnover
Jordan Bowden turnover
Yves Pons miss
Josiah James turnover
John Fulkerson miss
10 second violation
John Fulkerson miss
Auburn took the lead 55-54 with 8:06 to play.
The Vols didn’t fold, to their credit. Bowden’s cock-back dunk put the Vols back up three with 5:15 to play. Auburn hit a 7-0 spurt in response that featured the Vols fouling a three-point shooter and a turnover from Josiah James. Free throws from Vescovi and Bowden tied it again at 64-64; when Auburn hit a three, Vescovi hit a two to make it 67-66 Auburn with 1:15 to go.
Here, you have to credit Anfernee McLemore for hitting a really tough shot over Pons. Yves played well on both ends and had several shots rattle out, and just missed a big block on this play.
Auburn led by three with 45 seconds to go, and the Vols turned it over one more time, the sixth of the day from Josiah James. The Tigers finished it off at the free throw line, trailing 54-37 with 14:35 to go and winning 73-66.
In that piece from The Athletic, Barnes mentions a note from Admiral Schofield’s talk with the team after the Vanderbilt win: the Vols were in a similar spot three years ago, Schofield’s sophomore season in 2017. Tennessee was 14-10 (6-5) and hosting Georgia. The comparison is even more apt now: in that game the Vols were up 53-39 with 15:15 to play in Knoxville. They got J.J. Fraziered and lost by one point.
Both of those Tennessee teams played hard, played well against good teams, and gave themselves a chance. It’s been especially painful then, on these last two Saturdays, to watch the Vols give that chance away against good teams on the road by turning the ball over. Four turnovers in the last two minutes at South Carolina. Twenty-four all told today, including four in a row and six in nine possessions to let Auburn back in the game, and four others down the stretch to keep the Vols out of it. John Fulkerson finished with four turnovers, Vescovi five to just three assists. And Josiah James turned it over six times, including the last one.
It hurts more this way: play hard, give yourself a chance to overachieve, and then give that chance away. It’s worth noting what happened to those 2017 Vols after that loss to Georgia: with Robert Hubbs on the mend, Tennessee lost four of its last six, then lost to Georgia at the buzzer in the SEC Tournament, finishing 16-16 and missing not only the NCAAs but the NIT as well.
We’ll see what becomes of this Tennessee team, who played above themselves well enough to create genuine disappointment when they couldn’t finish it off. It will serve them well going forward. It just hurts a lot more today.
In the KenPom era (2002-present), Tennessee’s average strength of schedule is 27th nationally. The last three years it ranked 16th, 11th, and 25th. By this metric Tennessee played a Top 25 schedule four times in Bruce Pearl’s tenure, and never finished lower than 34th in those six years. And though it slipped a bit between the Pearl and Barnes eras (average strength of schedule from Cuonzo’s first season through Barnes’ first season: 45th), the expectation of a schedule that will help you on Selection Sunday is clearly here to stay under the current administration.
That certainly looked to be the case this season. Going in knowing the Vols would face Washington, Florida State, Purdue/VCU, Memphis, Cincinnati, Wisconsin, and Kansas? It more than passed the test.
What happened?
Washington, still 65th in KenPom, is an unbelievable 12-15 after a 10-2 start. They’ve now lost nine in a row, five by six points or less.
Florida State is 22-4 and a two seed in the Bracket Matrix, check.
VCU is 17-9, losers of three straight, next four out in the Bracket Matrix.
Memphis is 18-8 but just 7-6 in the American, the seventh-best conference in KenPom, and played most of the season without James Wiseman. They’re in two of 116 brackets in the matrix.
Cincinnati is 17-9 and has now played four consecutive overtime games, including a double overtime loss to UCF on Wednesday when a half-court prayer was answered just after the buzzer. They also played three straight overtime games in November! They’re last four in.
Wisconsin is 16-10 but 9-6 in the Big Ten, meaning they’re the closest of this group to locking up a seed other than Florida State and…
Kansas, 23-3 and still number one in KenPom, check.
The Vols got their money’s worth from the Seminoles and Jayhawks. Everyone else on what we thought would be a dynamite non-conference slate has become the bubble or worse.
Meanwhile, the SEC currently has no teams in the KenPom Top 25. Kentucky is 28th with Florida, LSU, and Auburn all in the 30’s. It’s shaping up to be the weakest SEC since 2014, when Florida went undefeated in conference play and the league put just three teams in the NCAA Tournament, including the Vols in Dayton. The matrix puts four in right now, with Alabama, Mississippi State, and Arkansas all in the first five out.
In a sense, the Vols have been betrayed by both the schedule and the conference. Tennessee’s strength of schedule is currently 59th in KenPom. It’ll go up from here, but how far? Tennessee lost to Florida State by three and at Kansas by six. They’re competitive with the very best they’ve faced. The Vols are 64th in NET and can still get to at least 19 wins, keeping them within historical thresholds for an at-large bid at the moment. But it’s anyone’s guess on such a weak bubble.
And if that’s the case, the best argument might end up being for teams that get hot late…which is exactly what Tennessee has to have to get in anyway.
Better Late Than Never
That sense of frustration with the schedule carries over to these next two games, the start of what we’ve long known to be an end-of-season gauntlet. But Auburn just lost two straight on the road by double digits to Missouri and Georgia, both triple-digit squads in KenPom. The Tigers are still 22-4 but missing freshman Isaac Okoro, one of their most reliable scorers. Meanwhile Arkansas has lost five in a row: two in overtime, one by a single point, and a pair of blowouts at Tennessee and Florida.
So the bad news is what looked like opportunities against a Top 10 foe and a tournament team are now games against teams who’ve two and five straight. The good news: Tennessee needs wins, and perhaps now the odds are a little more in their favor.
The Vols’ only two Quad 1 wins are against VCU with Lamonte Turner and at Alabama. Both are next four out in the matrix. If you want the best win of the year and the first over a tournament lock? Here it is.
Without Okoro, Auburn fell into the bad shot selection trap at Missouri: 20-of-28 from two, but 1-of-17 from three. The Tigers also got to the line an insane 46 times (on the road!), but missed 16 free throws. Meanwhile Missouri was hot: 55% from the floor, 7-of-13 from three, and they won by a dozen.
Auburn followed their 1-of-17 performance with 4-of-26 from the arc at Georgia. They beat LSU (with Okoro) by going 18-of-44 from three (40.9%). But that was their best performance from the arc in league play, and perhaps created an unnecessary reliance. You might recall Bruce Pearl’s 2009 Vol squad, which was the worst three-point shooting team in that year’s NCAA Tournament…and then fired off 33 threes in the first round loss to Oklahoma State.
The Tigers are the worst three-point shooting team in SEC play at just 26.9% from the arc. Sure, they can get hot – Auburn is third nationally in luck via KenPom, see the LSU game most recently – but it’s clearly become an issue, especially without Okoro. The thing they’re best at is limiting second chances offensively, leading the league in offensive rebound percentage allowed. But that hasn’t been a ton of Tennessee’s game.
The most interesting match-up here: when the Tigers don’t shoot a three and go to the rim, who wins the battle between shot-blocking and drawing fouls? Tennessee is first in the SEC in blocked shots. Auburn is first in the SEC in free throw rate. Austin Wiley has the size, but Auburn’s guards have been the best at drawing fouls. Okoro was good at this, but Samir Doughty is great at it and shoots 78% once he’s at the stripe. How the Vols stop penetration, rotate, and protect the rim without fouling will go a long way to determining the outcome here.
If you’re looking for tournament scenarios, it’s not quite must-win yet. But the alternative is probably winning at Rupp, or winning multiple games in the SEC Tournament. Might as well win this one.
Tennessee’s at-the-wire finishes are coming in small bursts this season: two games in Destin against Florida State and VCU, both games against South Carolina, and the win at Alabama. The Vols are 3-2 in those one possession games, which is about what you’d expect; for every, “If we’d only hit a three against Memphis (a four-point loss),” there’s an, “If Lamonte doesn’t hit that shot against VCU…”.
The particular pain of the South Carolina finish was four turnovers in the last two minutes, a game the Vols led by six with 3:40 to play. Of Tennessee’s most painful losses this season, this one felt the most self-inflicted.
The most costly is still Texas A&M. But because the Vols lost that one, losing a game you had won at South Carolina on February 15 certainly feels like the most devastating outcome this season. The Vols are hurting. Are they finished?
Last season the SEC had five teams finish in Ken Pomeroy’s Top 25, plus Florida at #26. In 2018 it was four Top 25 teams plus Texas A&M at #29. In 2017 Kentucky and Florida finished in the top five, and South Carolina’s run to the Final Four landed them at #24.
Right now, the SEC leader in KenPom is Kentucky…at 30th. Auburn, LSU, and Florida are all in the 30’s, with Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi State in the 40’s and the Vols at 57.
Tennessee’s strength of schedule should still finish strong. Strong enough to feel good about any path to 19 wins? Eh…
So, let’s start here: the first truly must-win game of the season is tonight. Tennessee cannot lose to 1-11 Vanderbilt in Knoxville after already losing to Texas A&M. If that happens, stop reading.
With a win tonight, the Vols would go to 15-11 (7-6) with five games to play: at Auburn, at Arkansas, vs Florida, at Kentucky, vs Auburn. It’s a stout finish with four Quad 1 opportunities. Beat Vanderbilt, and then the conversation becomes about what each of those wins could do for you.
We used Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology and teamcast to play out multiple scenarios for Tennessee. The idea for this team post-Lamonte has always been to get better as the season went along, with a chance to show that progress at the end. To get back on the bubble, the Vols will either have to do that at the end of the regular season, or at the SEC Tournament in Nashville.
A few scenarios – all of which include beating Vanderbilt – that would get the Vols in the conversation on Selection Sunday:
The Lloyd Christmas: 17-14 with a run to the SEC Tournament Finals
Tennessee wins its home games (Vanderbilt, Florida, Auburn) and goes 0-3 on the road. The Vols finish the regular season 17-14 (9-9).
Tennessee wins an 8/9 game in the SEC Tournament, then beats Kentucky on Friday, then beats Florida/Mississippi State/South Carolina on Saturday, then loses a close game to Auburn or LSU in the finals. The Vols are 20-15 on Selection Sunday, picking up three Quad 1 wins in a span of eight days.
Torvik prediction: First Four Out
The Most Reasonable Path: 18-13 plus two wins in the SEC Tournament
Tennessee wins its home games (Vandy, Florida, Auburn) and takes advantage of a good match-up against Arkansas again, this time in Fayetteville. The Vols finish the regular season 18-13 (10-8).
Tennessee wins a 7/10 game in the SEC Tournament, beats either Auburn or LSU on Friday, then loses to the other on Saturday. The Vols are 20-14 on Selection Sunday.
Torvik prediction: First Four Out
The I Knew They Had It In Them: 19-12 plus no disaster in the SEC Tournament
Tennessee wins its home games, wins in Fayetteville, and takes advantage of what has been an unusually lucky Auburn team on the road as well. The Vols finish the regular season on a 5-1 spurt, losing only at Rupp, and are 19-12 (11-7).
If the Vols are a five seed in the SEC Tournament, they beat the 12/13 seed on Thursday.
Torvik prediction: Dayton (with room for improvement in Nashville)
If we’re courting realism here, the Vols really need to go at least 3-2 in those last five games; if your plan involves a run to the SEC Tournament finals, hey, let’s just win the SEC Tournament. Right now KenPom gives Tennessee 1.96 wins in those last five games. It’ll take an upset and at least one road win.
So we reach a place we found ourselves at the end of what became Cuonzo Martin’s final season: unlikely, but not impossible. Because of Tennessee’s record, we’re also still in the middle ground this team has occupied post-Lamonte: the Vols continue to hang out between 11-13 in KenPom’s efficiency ratings (as in, the Vols would be favored by 11-13 points on a neutral floor against an average team in a game with 100 possessions). Six Tennessee teams have finished between 10.5 and 12.7 in KenPom. Bruce Pearl’s final team made the NCAA Tournament, three others made the NIT, and two – Buzz Peterson’s first team and Rick Barnes’ second – stayed home at .500. There ain’t much space between 18-13 and 16-15. One goes to the SEC Tournament needing a couple of wins to get in the bubble conversation. One goes to the SEC Tournament needing a couple of wins to make the NIT.
And so, 25 games into this season, all the options are still on the table for this team. All roads lead through Vanderbilt tonight. And if they do, we’ll get at least one more week of asking if they have anything more to give.
For NCAA Tournament purposes, Tennessee’s formula remains much the same as it was two weeks ago: the Vols need wins, and their closing schedule should be strong enough that it doesn’t matter much how they get to 18-13 or 19-12 as long as they get there. Coming into the month, we looked at historical data on teams earning the final at-large bids: since tournament expansion to 68 in 2011, no team has earned an at-large bid with less than 19 wins or more than 15 losses. Three different SEC teams got in at 19-15 in the last three years.
A 17-14 (9-9) finish could send the Vols to Nashville with a chance to get to 19-15 by way of two SEC Tournament wins. But the uniqueness of Tennessee’s case – games with and without Lamonte Turner – makes me think you really need to get to at least 18 regular season wins to give yourself a more realistic chance.
The NCAA’s NET ratings are too new for reliable historical data, but last year the four teams who went to Dayton – Arizona State, Belmont, St. John’s, and Temple – finished 63rd, 47th, 73rd, and 56th. Ohio State earned the final non-Dayton at-large bid at 55th. Last year’s 10 seeds – Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, and Seton Hall – finished 31st, 43rd, 61st, and 57th. The Vols are currently 63rd in NET, so they’re within the margin on a one-year sample size. The Gators were 19-15 last season but finished 14th nationally in strength of schedule.
Tennessee is tough to predict on that front – the Vols are 53rd currently in KenPom’s SOS rating – and that number may go down a bit after the Vols host Vanderbilt on Tuesday. But it will only go up after that – at Auburn, at Arkansas, vs Florida, at Kentucky, vs Auburn – I’m just not sure exactly how high. Bart Torvik’s predictive data projects it to finish 39th. Warren Nolan’s projects it to finish fifth. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.
One of the biggest problems Tennessee has right now is Washington, who’s been in absolute free fall: the Huskies have lost seven in a row, five of them by six points or less, and are 2-11 after a 10-2 start. They’ve fallen out of Quadrant 1, leaving the Vols with just two such victories (VCU, at Alabama). The good news on that: it removes some of the Lamonte Turner bias from the equation.
The Vols, of course, will get at least five Quad 1 opportunities in their final seven games (home vs NET 1-30, neutral vs NET 1-50, away vs NET 1-75). That starts with an on-fire South Carolina team in Columbia tomorrow.
If you’re looking for the most straightforward path to 18-13 (10-8), it’s winning out at home (Vandy, Florida, Auburn) and beating South Carolina on the road. That scenario also gives the Vols an elite win over Auburn (in the season finale), a happier scenario than getting to 18 wins but losing to Auburn and Kentucky twice. After watching the Vols dismantle Arkansas on Tuesday, if you want to replace tomorrow with the February 26th trip to Fayetteville as the most winnable road game, fine by me. KenPom’s math still gives the Vols slightly better odds in Columbia at 41% vs 32% at Arkansas.
So nothing about Tennessee’s NCAA fate will be decided at South Carolina. The Vols need 18 or 19 wins to go to the SEC Tournament feeling like they’ve got a real chance. Lose tomorrow and you need to go 4-2 down the stretch. Win tomorrow and you’re already at 15; follow it up with a home win over Vanderbilt (more can’t-lose than must-win), and you go to a CBS game at Auburn at 16-10 (8-5), and you’re back in the conversation much faster.
Either way, the Vols just need wins. And this one will be harder to come by than we bargained for.
This chicken is spicy and last time it gave me heartburn.
Tennessee beat South Carolina 56-55 on January 11 with heavy usage from the word “despite”: the Vols made just 14 shots and went 25.9% from the floor. The latter would’ve been a decade-low if not for the 25% performance against Memphis. But the Vols held South Carolina to 32.8% from the floor, the Gamecocks hit just two threes on thirteen attempts, and most importantly, the Vols went 22-of-28 at the free throw line.
That loss dropped South Carolina to 8-7 (0-2), their third straight defeat including one at home to the Hatters of Stetson. And so right on cue, they beat Kentucky the next game out. And now they’ve won seven of nine.
The schedule hasn’t been overly challenging after Kentucky – they lost at Auburn by 13 and won at Arkansas by two – but they’re getting better along the way. They just beat Texas A&M by 20 and won at Georgia by 16 in a game they led by 24 with four minutes to play. Confidence is high.
As you’d expect, it’s defense: at Georgia they went just 11-of-19 from the line and 6-of-17 from the arc and still flat out dominated. They held the Dawgs to 3-of-24 from the arc and Anthony Edwards to 0-of-7, and turned Georgia over 19 times. Texas A&M started the game on a 9-0 spurt, then South Carolina went on a 61-21 (!!!) run. The Aggies turned it over 20 times and shot 28.6% from two and 25.9% from three.
If you’re looking for the best defense in conference play, it’s this one. The Gamecocks are first in effective FG% allowed, first in three point defense (25.7%), second in steals, third at defending inside the arc, and fourth in turnovers forced, blocked shots, and offensive rebounds allowed. It’s a robust unit that can bang with anyone with Maik Kotsar inside surrounded by four players 6’4″ and taller. Offensively in conference play, they’re more or less our equivalent – the Vols are seventh in offensive efficiency in league play, the Gamecocks eighth – but their defense makes a tremendous difference. The home losses to Stetson and Boston University cost them just about everything when it comes to the bracket, but this is not a team you want to play right now.
But since we have to, might as well go back to what worked last time, and what is far and away their greatest weakness:
Get The Whistle
South Carolina is last in the SEC in free throw rate allowed, getting called for contact on 53.4% of opponent attempts. And they are last in the SEC by a comical amount in free throw shooting at just 62.9% from the line. That game you just saw against Arkansas, where you complained about all the fouls? That’s the one you want tomorrow.
Nothing will be easy against South Carolina’s defense, but a few things have changed for the Vols offensively since January 11. John Fulkerson hadn’t quite leveled up yet, though he played well against the Gamecocks the first time at 5-of-7. He followed that up with the 2-of-2 performance at Georgia. Since then, Fulkerson averages nine attempts per game. He’s still 13th nationally in true shooting percentage (now 0-for-1 with a three attempt on the board). When he played well offensively against South Carolina it was more of a surprise. Now it’s the expectation and the focal point of Tennessee’s offense.
In turn, Jordan Bowden took 17 shots against the Gamecocks the first time and made just one of them, including 1-of-12 from three. Since then, Bowden averages 12.1 shots per game and 4.3 threes per game. He’s still there, but he’s attacking the rim more, drawing fouls more, and I’d imagine feeling less of a burden that he’s all or nothing for this team without Lamonte.
And January 11 was game three for Santiago Vescovi, featuring three assists and seven turnovers. Again, South Carolina leads the league in steals, so I wouldn’t expect perfection this time. But here’s a fun little chart:
Santiago Vescovi Assists, Turnovers, Turnovers Per Minute
Opponent
Minutes
TO
TO/Min
Assists
A/TO
LSU
34
9
0.26
4
0.44
at Missouri
19
5
0.26
2
0.40
South Carolina
22
7
0.32
3
0.43
at Georgia
25
2
0.08
3
1.50
at Vanderbilt
25
5
0.20
2
0.40
Ole Miss
22
2
0.09
4
2.00
at Kansas
32
0
0.00
3
3.00
Texas A&M
37
2
0.05
6
3.00
at Mississippi St
31
3
0.10
5
1.67
at Alabama
38
1
0.03
5
5.00
Kentucky
39
3
0.08
2
0.67
Arkansas
31
3
0.10
8
2.67
I’d imagine Vescovi will play more than 22 minutes this time.
There are also rumblings the Vols might get Josiah-Jordan James back in the lineup, which means Vescovi and Bowden might not have to play 38 minutes. I’m curious to see if we get any Eastern European showdown this time with Plavsic vs Kotsar, but if JJJ is back the Vols can keep minutes balanced all over the floor with Pons and Fulkerson at the four and five.
Fulkerson is more consistent, Bowden won’t shoot that poorly or that often, and Vescovi is far more reliable than the first time around. But the way you beat this team remains: get to the rim, make them foul you, and don’t be afraid to get physical with them on the other end.
6:00 PM Saturday, SEC Network. It’s big. They’re all big now.
You never know for sure in the league this year – Ole Miss is currently up 25 on Mississippi State – but we thought this might be a really good match-up for the Vols. And that’s exactly what we got: an Arkansas team with no player over 6’8″ found no advantage on the offensive glass and an inability to defend the Vols without fouling. The fouls actually ended up being a wash – Tennessee went 24-of-30, Arkansas 26-of-36 – and the Hogs’ commitment to three-point defense was fairly well represented too, as the Vols went 6-of-16 to Arkansas’ 5-of-16.
But the Vols found a huge difference in the paint, finishing +11 on the glass and getting high-percentage stuff from Jordan Bowden (5-of-9 from two), Yves Pons (4-of-7), an under-the-weather John Fulkerson (4-of-5) and a nice burst from Olivier Nkamhoua off the bench (2-of-2).
Two other factors were a real difference. The Vols started strong, building a 10-point lead in the first 10 minutes and a 17-point advantage at halftime. Arkansas got a bucket at the 17:47 mark in the second half to keep it at 17. Their next made basket came at 9:07, which cut the Tennessee lead to 25. Mason Jones, an SEC Player of the Year candidate, came off the bench in some apparent message-sending from Eric Mussleman. It didn’t work: the Vols held him to 1-of-10 from the floor, nine points total. He scored 30+ in three of his last four games.
And then there’s Santiago Vescovi. The “wait til he cleans some of his game up” stuff might be happening in the present: 20 points and eight assists tonight, including 3-of-4 from the arc.
The result is a game Tennessee controlled from start to finish, a 21-point win over a bubble squad. It moves Tennessee to 14-10 (6-5); again, the Vols just need wins. Seven games left, and the Vols need to win at least four of them. Vanderbilt is getting friskier by the minute, so maybe nothing will be easy. But opportunity will knock almost every night against this schedule, which goes next to Columbia to face a South Carolina team the Vols beat last time only by getting to the free throw line.
But Vescovi has become the poster child for both Tennessee’s bracket hopes and their argument: when you mix and match so many pieces midseason, sometimes you struggle…but sometimes you get a higher probability of your best basketball late in the year. Combined with the win at Alabama and what’s still a strong performance against Kentucky, the Vols are playing solid basketball right now. They’ll need it to become even more so the rest of the way home. But their point guard has become a real weapon as both scorer and facilitator, the Vols have done this without Josiah James three games in a row, and dominated tonight with Fulkerson at something less than 100%.
There’s a long way to go and an uphill climb to get there. But the Volunteer heart is still beating. And its pulse is getting stronger.
There’s some emotional vulnerability in the air at Thompson-Boling tonight: the depleted Vols, who played hard and smart but just couldn’t get good looks to fall against their rivals over the weekend. And the Razorbacks, who weren’t even supposed to be here in Eric Mussleman’s first season, who were 16-5 (4-4) before losing consecutive games in overtime to Auburn and Missouri.
If you’re the Vols, you want to prevent what happened to Arkansas the second time around and let an emotional loss cost you a second game. Tennessee is also nicely positioned in the Ackbar seat, with Arkansas facing Mississippi State and Florida next.
But more than anything, this match-up is, on paper, more favorable to Tennessee than any on the rest of their schedule (non-Vanderbilt division).
Arkansas starts four players under 6’6″ and 6’8″ Reggie Chaney at center, who is the tallest player on their active roster. As such, the Razorbacks are one of the worst teams in college basketball at the thing that’s killed Tennessee the most recently: offensive rebounds. And they’re bad, in part, because they want to get back and set up their defense, which is built around taking away something the Vols don’t want much to do with anyway: three point shooting.
The Razorbacks are 336th nationally in offensive rebounding. They’re the best team in the country at defending the three, allowing 24.6% from the arc. Check and check for a Tennessee team that wants to go inside and won’t find much opposition in the way of height.
Honestly, every conversation with Arkansas should probably start with Mason Jones, one step ahead of Reggie Perry on the KenPom SEC Player of the Year race. The 6’5″ sophomore scored 18 points on the Vols last year, but it didn’t matter because Arkansas gave up 106. But you have to defend him everywhere: he gets the ball more than any player in the league, he’s responsible for 30% of Arkansas’ shots, and he’s tops in the league at drawing fouls. In the overtime loss at Auburn he took 12 twos, 12 threes, and 16 free throws, scoring 40 points in playing all 45 minutes.
There is a bit of a “just stop everyone else” with this team: he also had 34 in the loss to South Carolina on January 29. We’ve seen one player really wreck Tennessee when the Vols faced Anthony Edwards. If that’s the story again, Tennessee won’t have the firepower to match on the other end.
If you want the flicker of hope for the bracket, it looks like this: beat Arkansas at home tonight (50% in KenPom), get a win at South Carolina on Saturday (41%), take care of business against Vandy next Tuesday (84%). Then you’re 16-10 (8-5), and you’ve at least given yourself a chance against that ridiculous finish. There’s a lot to like in this match-up for the Vols. They just can’t let Jones wreck it by himself.
7:00 PM, SEC Network. You like the improvement from many of this team’s pieces. Now is the time for that improvement to lead to wins.
