Author Archives: Will Shelton

I wore orange to work today, even though I figured they wouldn’t really play basketball at 1:00 PM ET in Nashville. Since moving back to Virginia I’ve acquired more brand-free orange so as to be somewhat less obnoxious to my neighbors here in Hokieland. It’s convenient, since both of the schools of record in the commonwealth have orange in their scheme anyway.

I wore orange to work today because we played today, or we were supposed to, and that’s what we do. It didn’t matter that the Vols are 17-14 and not 27-4 as they were this week a year ago. That distinction feels like it matters a whole lot right now – the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament isn’t robbing us of a real chance to make our first Final Four this year – but we’re also figuring out, and fast, how much we’re actually going to miss a hypothetical NIT run.

It’s never really about the winning. I’ve written about Tennessee for 14 years now, a period in which the football team has 94 wins and 83 losses. That’s tied with Western Michigan for the nation’s 59th best winning percentage in that span. And yet, we keep putting fingers to keyboard to talk about the Vols because that’s what we do. I’m not far from 40, and I still have a stubborn, childlike, idiot optimism that says, “I know they’re probably not even going to play this thing, but Alabama’s on a slide, and we should have no fear of Kentucky now, and if we can get to Saturday…” And so by God, we wear orange to work today.

There’s a quote I like for sports about how they’re the most important unimportant thing we do. Now something that only happens a couple days a year in the summer – no games of record in America’s major sports the days before and after baseball’s all-star game – is getting ready to become our reality for at least weeks. They’re still playing golf at Sawgrass this weekend, at least for the moment. And if you can judge the severity of a hurricane by when the Waffle House closes? Vince McMahon and professional rasslin’ are without question the Waffle House of sports (entertainment). So there may still be a few unusual options, but no reason to wear your color of choice to work for a while.

We won’t miss sports because they matter, as much as we’ll miss them because so much else does. For these same 14 years, I’ve been a United Methodist pastor. There have been plenty of days when writing about the Vols seemed so unimportant. And some of those days I just haven’t. I’m not contractually obligated to create content – I get to do this because I want to – but if I was, I too might find it somewhere between odd and distasteful to write about who Tennessee’s backup tight end will be this fall. At least right now, while all of this is still unfolding and none of us are sure just how bad it’s going to be.

But at the same time, when it is that bad, there are moments when all I want to do is write about the backup tight end.

I think it cheapens both sports and life when we define them as only “escape”. Sports can absolutely serve that purpose; solitude is cozier when your bracket’s on the line. But sports also contain so much of what we value about the actually important things: relationships, loyalty, community, and a childlike hope. The winning and losing is more defined. But it’s never fully about the winning and losing. The experience itself is what keeps us coming back.

This time last year during Lent, our church took one consistent, meaningful, screen-free hour for 40 days (inspired by The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch, a great book that might be an especially worthy read if you’re thinking of how to fill more hours in these next few weeks). My wife and I took 4-5 pm each day: no screens, no phones, etc. That meant a callback to the days of John Ward during the middle third of an epic Tennessee & Kentucky showdown in the SEC Tournament, letting the radio be our guide. A few days later it also meant a panicked hour of, “Alexa, what’s the score of the Tennessee game?” when Colgate made a run.

It was just an hour every day, but it was harder than I thought it would be. We are indeed creatures of habit. In our tradition, God creates with order from chaos, a story told in poetry. We’re made for rhythm. Maybe sports should never sit in the first chair. But they make the song better, even when you lose.

Important stuff is happening. But if you do it right, important stuff happens every day. I’d let those who are experiencing these cancellations on a personal level speak for themselves and call it what they like. From Dayton, to Rutgers, to those in the state tournament here in Virginia, now called off with titles split among the finalists. The NCAA cancelled all spring sports. That hurts for our suddenly prominent baseball team, who might’ve squeezed in a reason to wear orange to work in June. And it hurts for names we’ll never know or see who ran track or played tennis. They’ll have their own language. As fans, we’d be wrong to call any of this a tragedy while actual tragedy unfolds. But I think we’d be right to lament the loss, though temporary, of the place sports hold in the rhythm of our lives.

At my job we’re trying to figure out whether or not to have church on Sunday. But the real work is in trying to figure out how to get food to kids if school closes, and make sure our 90+ year old friends have what they need for today. And we’ll give ourselves to that work, because that’s what we do. I will miss coming home, at the end of a long day, and checking the NET ratings. I’m sure we’ll still find something hopeful and orange to talk about on this site.

Maybe that’s the thing about being creatures of habit, created in the image of a creator: we can always make something new. The song goes on. We can still find the rhythm.

At the end of this long day, I came home and played outside with my 2.5 year old son while my wife, about to enter her third trimester with our daughter, watched on. The cure for absence is presence, even if you have to be present a little more carefully right now. Presence makes you better at all the important stuff. And presence helps you appreciate all that’s good and right about sports in its proper place too.

At the end of this long day, the music still plays and we can still find the rhythm: my son picked up a basketball, and we took it from there.

Go Vols.

When you’re putting together dream scenarios for the Vols to run through Nashville and win the SEC Tournament, a few things might wake you from sleep. Tennessee hasn’t won four games in a row since starting the season 5-0. If you make it through Thursday, the league champion awaits on Friday (though that wasn’t a problem last week). And a young, thrown-together lineup will generally lack the consistency it takes to pull off this kind of feat, one the Vols haven’t accomplished since 1979.

But perhaps more than anything, how long this Tennessee team lasts is dependent on its stamina. These Vols aren’t just hastily formed, they’re operating at just about the only way they have a chance to succeed: playing their starters an insane amount of minutes.

It feels like John Fulkerson is the key piece of the puzzle here, but statistically that’s not true. Granted, he played 39 minutes in the win at Rupp. But Fulkerson, through some combination of fatigue and foul trouble, plays only 30.1 minutes per game.

The word “only”, as you’ll see, is relative. Let’s start with Jordan Bowden.

The Vol senior averages 34.4 minutes per game, well north of the 27.8 he put in last season. And it’s well north of anyone to play at Tennessee in the last 15 years (Pearl, Cuonzo, Tyndall, and Barnes) other than Josh Richardson:

Player	Season	MPG
Josh Richardson	2015	36.3
Jordan Bowden	2020	34.4
Kevin Punter	2016	34.1
Yves Pons	2020	33.9
Jordan McRae	2013	33.5
Jordan Bone	2019	32.9
Armani Moore	2016	32.7
Tyler Smith	2009	32.6
Jarnell Stokes	2014	32.4
Jordan McRae	2014	32.2

(data via Sports-Reference)

One thing you’ll notice about that list: none of Tennessee’s NCAA Tournament teams featured anyone playing 33 minutes or more. Of the nine Vol squads to make the dance in these last 15 years, five saw the guy with the most minutes play less than 30 per game. The bench isn’t just about how much production they give you when they’re on the floor. It’s about their ability to have your best players at their best in the last four minutes.

What Bowden is doing gets little press; it’s easy to take a senior who played 22.8 minutes as a freshman for granted. But he’s been doing this all year, even before Lamonte Turner went out (39 minutes vs Washington, 37 at Cincinnati). When Josh Richardson did it in 2015, it became one of the most remarkable things about that season by its end. But this team came so close to doing something truly remarkable in the regular season, Bowden’s individual stamina has gone largely unnoticed.

And it’s not just him. There’s Yves Pons at fourth on the leaderboard at 33.9 minutes per game. When Fulkerson gets a blow, sometimes it’s Pons who gives it to him. Those nearly 34 minutes a night are the most at Tennessee for a non-guard since Ron Slay played 34.2 in his SEC Player of the Year campaign in 2003. Pons is the SEC shot blocking champion at 2.4 per game, joining Nick Richards (2.1) as the only players to average more than two per game.

Also, consider Santiago Vescovi, who isn’t just remarkable for playing and playing well this season. Vescovi’s 30.3 minutes per game are the most for a Tennessee freshman since C.J. Watson played an insane 35.8 minutes on that same 2003 squad with Ron Slay, another bubble casualty with those two and Jon Higgins all playing more than 33 minutes per game. And Josiah James is right behind Vescovi at 29.9 minutes per game.

Here’s what minutes for elite freshmen typically look like at Tennessee:

Player	Year	MPG
Santiago Vescovi	2020	30.3
Josiah James	2020	29.9
Grant Williams	2017	25.4
Jarnell Stokes	2012	25.6
Tobias Harris	2011	29.2
Scotty Hopson	2009	23.4
Ramar Smith	2007	27.2
Chris Lofton	2005	29.5
C.J. Watson	2003	35.8

Good news is coming, but not this week. Jordan Bowden’s 34.4 minutes will have to be replaced, but the Vols have Keon Johnson, Jaden Springer, and Oregon transfer Victor Bailey to carry that load. Corey Walker and a more fully-formed Uros Plavsic can make sure Fulkerson and Pons are at their very best late in the action.

Right now the Vols are running a glorified seven-man rotation: the starters all play 30+ minutes, Jalen Johnson and Davonte Gaines contribute 10-15 minutes off the bench depending on whether you need more from your offense or defense, and maybe you get a brief spell for your posts from Plavsic and Olivier Nkamhoua. If the Vols do make the NIT, I’ll be curious to see if Barnes throws those two in the fire more often just to see what he’s got.

But next year, there should be a legitimate battle for playing time. If you assume Vescovi, James, Pons, and Fulkerson are all in the mix, plus your three stud recruits, plus Victor Bailey, that’s eight before we even get to this year’s bench of Plavsic, Nkamhoua, Gaines, Johnson, and Pember. Get the kind of growth we’ve come to expect from this coaching staff and the kind of spark you expect from bringing in the nation’s number five class, and the problem will be figuring out who your best five are instead of worrying about if they’re your only five.

Given all that, what the Vols have done this season deserves a tip of the cap no matter where it goes from here. I’m hopeful it’ll go as long as it can in Nashville. But given these minutes, any run would be remarkable. And in a season full of surprises, who knows? Maybe they’ve got one left up their tired sleeves.

A tip of the cap to the 2018 and 2019 Vols, for whom no such fun was required and we spent the first week of March trying to figure out what makes a one seed. I’d be happy to write those posts every year. But in this year, to get to this point – a chance to be in the bubble conversation with a home win over a ranked foe on the last day of the regular season – and to arrive here via Rupp Arena? I’m delighted to write this one as well.

First this: beat Auburn. Any scenario that involves the phrase, “Maybe if we make it all the way to Sunday in the SEC Tournament,” will lead, even in its rare fulfillment, to the simple desire to just win the (Fulmerized) SEC Tournament for once. The Vols still have just two Quad 1 wins heading to senior day, and as we’ve documented at length, their strength of schedule will end up being good but not great. The core of this argument has to be what you’ve done for me lately. Beat Auburn to complete a Florida-Kentucky-Auburn triple kill, now we’re talking. Lose to the Tigers, and we’ll have to do it the hard way in Nashville.

Lessons From Cuonzo, Lessons From Bruce

As has been the case for much of the post-Lamonte run, the Vols’ closest program counterparts in KenPom are Bruce Pearl’s last team (a 9 seed at 19-14) and a trio of NIT squads from Cuonzo’s first two years and Ron Slay’s SEC Player of the Year season in 2003. Where other Vol squads watched bubble hopes burst when things fell apart in late February, including Rick Barnes’ first two teams, this group is very much trying to live that Cuonzo life, at least in the last week of the regular season.

The 2012 Vols played host to a Vanderbilt team a week away from earning a five seed in the NCAA Tournament. Tennessee won 68-61. The 2013 Vols played host to a Missouri team a week away from earning a nine seed. Tennessee won 64-62. The 2014 Vols got Missouri again for the finale. They came to Knoxville on the bubble, and left with a 72-45 beat down.

Those first two teams lost their first game in the SEC Tournament, and the ride ended there (technically shortly thereafter in the NIT). The third snuck into Dayton and almost snuck into the Elite Eight. All you’ve gotta do is get in.

Beat Auburn, and the Vols will cross a couple of thresholds. No team has earned an at-large bid with a record worse than 19-15. Beat the Tigers, and the Vols would have 14 losses on Selection Sunday if they don’t win the NCAA Tournament. Eleven teams have earned an at-large bid with 14 or 15 losses since expansion to 68 in 2011.

The 19-15 number has a much healthier sample size than the NET ratings, which were brand new last season. Here’s a look at the cut line in NET last season:

Team	Seed	NET	Record
Florida	10	31	19-15
Iowa	10	43	22-11
Seton Hall	10	57	20-13
Minnesota	10	61	21-13
Ohio State	11	55	19-14
Belmont	Dayton	47	26-5
Temple	Dayton	56	23-9
Arizona St.	Dayton	63	22-10
St. John’s	Dayton	73	21-12

The Vols are currently 57th in NET, within the margins from last season. Again, small sample size, and no guarantees: last season NC State (33) and Clemson (35) both missed the dance floor despite strong NET ratings.

Tennessee has only two Quad 1 wins, and Auburn’s loss to Texas A&M tonight should deny them an opportunity for a third on Saturday. However, Florida’s win at Georgia – especially if followed up by a win over Kentucky in Gainesville – would give the Vols one back.

The bad news: the selection committee might just pass on the SEC as a whole. The Vols join Arkansas, Mississippi State, and South Carolina as bubble hopefuls coming to the final game. But if the league’s perception suffers in the room, the Vols might get caught in the wash.

Tennessee’s best argument is what’s it’s doing right now. Its second best argument is hard to quantify, but the Vols have been competitive at Kansas, vs Florida State, and obviously just beat Kentucky. If you get people in the room to talk about the Vols, you can make this point. But you have to get in the conversation first, which requires a win over Auburn.

And this is also a chance to learn and grow from the last time the Vols beat Kentucky in incredibly emotional fashion, then got blindsided by Auburn in the SEC Tournament title game. That one came at the expense of a one seed and the first SEC Tournament championship since 1979. This time the stakes are lower, but not smaller.

The Vols are great story with an unwritten ending. The last chapter was an incredible turn of events. Will that be the climax, or can the Vols keep building something more?

Beat Auburn.

We’ll get to bubble math. Believe me, we will.

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:

https://twitter.com/Kyle__Boone/status/1233913271331192833

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.

— Wes Rucker (@wesrucker247) March 4, 2020

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.

Even Rupp. Even this team. Even tonight.

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.

It’s the late shift: 9:00 PM, ESPN.

Go Vols.

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.

No problem:

You absolute legend @fulkerson_john pic.twitter.com/qOJFAOijFB

— benjamin (@BenGleason23) February 29, 2020

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.

Go Vols.

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:

Year	TO%	Rank	Steal %	Rank
2020	20.8%	290	11.6%	348
2019	15.8%	25	8.8%	173
2018	17.9%	141	8.2%	113
2017	17.4%	91	8.3%	135
2016	15.8%	32	8.5%	162
2015	19.7%	217	8.4%	82
2014	16.8%	71	8.4%	103
2013	20.1%	183	9.9%	177
2012	20.5%	204	10.9%	290
2011	19.8%	148	9.9%	227
2010	19.2%	106	8.6%	71
2009	18.3%	54	8.4%	42
2008	18.1%	27	7.9%	21
2007	18.8%	52	8.5%	62
2006	17.6%	13	8.5%	39
2005	20.6%	120	10.6%	176
2004	21.7%	181	11.4%	242
2003	22.8%	235	10.2%	171
2002	23.0%	250	11.9%	279

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.

Go Vols.

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.

High noon, CBS. Go Vols.