What Tennessee did against South Carolina was a perfect example of where this team is and what it will take going forward. The Vols shot 25.9% from the floor, which would’ve been the worst number in any of the last ten years if not for going 25% from the floor against Memphis. Yet Tennessee had a chance to win that game, and actually got it done this time: they held South Carolina to 32.8% from the floor, 2-of-13 (15.4%) from the arc, and the Vols knocked down 22-of-28 free throws.
Tennessee is 29th nationally in defensive efficiency (via KenPom), and has faced a schedule ranking 34th by opposing defenses. You know what you’re getting into against Kansas, Kentucky, Auburn, and Arkansas going forward, but the rest of Tennessee’s schedule should lighten a bit in this department. For the most part, the Vols can still defend well enough to give themselves a chance.
But this offense is now 114th nationally in efficiency. That’s the lowest number at Tennessee since Kevin O’Neill’s last season in 1997, when the Vols went 11-16 (4-12) and finished 278th in offensive efficiency. The only other year the Vols finished outside the Top 100 was Cuonzo Martin’s first campaign in 2012, when UT finished 106th.
Right now every shot that goes in is a big deal. Tennessee’s 14 made field goals against South Carolina tied Florida State for a season low; the Vols made just 15 shots against Memphis and 16 against Wisconsin. Tennessee continues to get high-percentage scoring from John Fulkerson (21st nationally in effective field goal percentage), but continues to have a tough time getting him quality touches inside.
Meanwhile, the late revelation at Missouri came with Fulkerson off the floor. With six minutes to play and the Vols down three, a lineup with Yves Pons at the five surrounded by Vescovi, Bowden, James, and Jalen Johnson ripped off a 14-3 run over three-and-a-half minutes. Tennessee’s small ball lineup spaced the floor and created a number of great looks for three point shooters.
From the arc, Santiago Vescovi is red hot out the gate at 10-of-18 (55.6%). Josiah James is also doing a nice job at 37.8% on the year. With Jordan Bowden now dipping under 30%, I’m curious to see how the Vols adapt their shot selection. Again, some of this should get better just by virtue of who’s next on the schedue: at Georgia (83rd in defensive efficiency), at Vanderbilt (242nd), and vs Ole Miss (119th) before going to Kansas next Saturday.
Overall, this team currently sits about where you’d expect when compared to their predecessors:
Year
KenPom
Record
Finish
2019
26.24
31-6
Sweet 16
2014
23.69
24-13
Sweet 16
2018
22.27
26-9
Round 2
2008
22.17
31-5
Sweet 16
2006
19.44
22-8
Round 2
2010
18.50
28-9
Elite 8
2007
18.29
24-11
Sweet 16
2009
16.48
21-13
Round 1
2020
13.31
10-5
2002
12.67
15-16
2017
12.62
16-16
2011
12.41
19-15
Round 1
2012
11.38
19-15
NIT
2003
10.99
17-12
NIT
2013
10.47
20-13
NIT
2005
8.89
14-17
2016
7.31
15-19
2004
7.30
15-14
NIT
2015
7.24
16-16
In KenPom, this team is behind all of Tennessee’s NCAA Tournament teams post-Jerry Green except for Bruce Pearl’s final season. Their closest comparison is Buzz Peterson’s first team, which lost seven one-possession or overtime games between December 15 and January 16, then lost Ron Slay to a torn ACL at the end of that stretch. Slay’s absence is probably the best historical comparison to this team losing Lamonte Turner. And that group’s 15-16 (7-9) finish shows the importance of winning close games, which can be the difference between the bubble and not even making the NIT in a season like this.
It’s why any win is a good one now, including a one-point slugfest against South Carolina. KenPom projects the Vols to finish 18-13 (10-8), which would at least send them to the SEC Tournament in the bubble conversation. The league has two ranked teams in Auburn and Kentucky, and then a lot of iffiness. Arkansas lost some of their momentum in a two-point loss at LSU, while the Tigers regained their close game magic in a 3-0 SEC start.
The Vols will keep figuring out, and it’s fun to watch the freshmen get better, not just Vescovi and James who play a lot, but guys like Drew Pember who can find themselves in crucial situations. The difference in this year ending at .500 and landing on the right side of the bubble is likely to be what the Vols do in close games. In SEC play, so far, so good.
We all want to win. Even after a remarkable second half to the 2019 season and a six-game winning streak, we’re all tired of years without banners or bowls we’d never grow tired of talking about.
We want our players to do well. We wanted that for Dobbs and Barnett and Kamara and Jauan and Cordarrelle and everyone else who found bright spots in the last 10+ years, and all the ones who didn’t.
We’ll want to win next year, and we’ll want the players who make up the 2020 Vols to do well. But it’s been a long time since we’ll have wanted a Tennessee team to win because we wanted it this much for an individual.
There are great stories out there to be told. This could be especially true for Jarrett Guarantano going forward, his rags turning into greater riches than the fine folks at Taxslayer can afford. Every season tells a story.
But if Trey Smith is coming back, then (Fulmerized), we might as well win them all.
Trey and his inner circle – whoever he considers that to be – get to be the experts on his decision making, and I know it surprised many of us to hear that news today, delivered in an impeccable late-90’s Louisiana accent. There’s some line out there between fact and fable when we talk about him risking his life to play for us. But Trey and his circle always get to be the ones to decide where that line is. One fact he seems quite clear on:
Trey Smith on why he's returning to school: I left some money on the field. There are some things I can be better at. I want to attack those areas.
Trey Smith would’ve been loved around here for a long time if he went pro, whether he became an NFL star or not. He entered new territory in that department today. And aside from our admiration for him playing at all and making this choice, now he’s got a chance to earn some rare accolades.
John Henderson and Will Overstreet both earned consecutive first-team All-SEC honors in 2000 and 2001. Since then, only one Vol – Eric Berry – has been named first-team All-SEC twice.
Charles McRae and Antone Davis were both first round draft picks in 1991. Since then, only one Vol offensive lineman – Ja’Wuan James – has been selected in the first round.
Trey Smith, number one in your hearts today and for a long time to come, can also be number one on a lot of other lists, and a lot of other “first time since”s.
And if one of the biggest questions for 2020 was, “Who leads?” Ding ding ding.
We always want to win. But today, by itself and especially as the culmination of everything after September, will take us to a set of expectations we haven’t enjoyed for a few years, thanks to a player we’ll want good things for more than any other in even longer.
The Vols have lost four of five, but Santiago Vescovi injected new interest into this season. In his second act, what changes more: six threes or nine turnovers?
Even without Lamonte Turner, Tennessee’s offense goes almost exclusively through good ball movement. Against Wisconsin Tennessee made just 16 shots, the fourth time this season the Vols made less than 20 field goals. But they still managed 12 assists. The ball went in much more often against LSU, but many of those threes still came off good ball movement, including penetration from Vescovi: 24 made shots with 18 assists.
Lamonte’s assist rate would still rank sixth nationally, but Tennessee still has it in its DNA: the Vols are fourth nationally in assist rate as a team, assisting on two-thirds of their made shots. But there’s a general problem here – does Tennessee have anybody who can create their own shot? – as well as a specific one the last two games. Against Wisconsin, the Vols got to the line 19 times but only made 10 free throws. Against LSU, the Vols shot just five free throws.
Vescovi will get better at finishing in the lane and not turning the ball over. He’s not going to hit six threes every night, nor am I sure Barnes wants him to take nine a game. But he’s also not going to go 0-for-4 from inside the arc with nine turnovers. We watch Vescovi with excitement for next season, a dedicated point guard hopefully expanding the potential of Tennessee’s elite incoming talent. But I’m still interested to see how if/how he can transform this year’s team: can he successfully create his own shot? Will he adjust his game in the lane fast enough to score at the rim?
Everything is very much in flux with this team, including:
Bowden’s minutes are 33.5 per game. Vescovi, fresh off the plane, played 32 minutes against LSU. There’s a lot more figuring out in front of this team than behind it, which will be frustrating with moments of enlightenment along the way.
The bad news: I’m not sure Cuonzo is who you want to be figuring your offense out against.
If those 16 made shots against Wisconsin felt low, they were: the Vols made just 15 shots in the infamous Virginia and Georgetown games in Cuonzo’s second season when the Vols, learning to play without Jeronne Maymon, ran into good defensive teams. You’ll find Maymon on Mizzou’s sideline these days, and the same defensive philosophy very much intact: the Tigers are fifth nationally in effective field goal percentage allowed.
Missouri is battle-tested, with losses to Xavier, Butler, Oklahoma, and a 71-59 defeat at Rupp in the SEC opener. They also beat rival Illinois on a neutral floor. Teams shoot just 25.9% against them from the arc, so yeah, it’s a great time to figure out how Vescovi can help Tennessee elsewhere. Much to Cuonzo’s chagrin, I’m sure, the Tigers are 338th nationally in non-steal turnover percentage on offense (via KenPom), meaning they love to give the ball away unnecessarily.
This may not be the match-up you want if you’re looking for Tennessee’s best chance to break this losing streak. But if you want the blessings and curses of Tennessee trying to figure themselves out against a team that will force them to do things differently…well, that’s probably what we’re going to get. Watch the lineups, watch Vescovi, and see if the Vols can get to the line and convert inside the arc.
7:00 PM ET, SEC Network. Let’s see what we learn this time.
From Jacksonville to Thompson-Boling, Tennessee tips off SEC play at high noon. It’s what looked like an incredibly appealing opener to conference play: Will Wade and LSU return to Knoxville after perhaps last season’s angriest loss. The Vols led for much of regulation in Baton Rouge, but LSU – on the strength of 31 free throw attempts to just 16 for the Vols – got it to overtime, then won on another foul call with 0.6 seconds left. That victory helped the Tigers get to 16-2 in league play, one game better than Tennessee, and steal the SEC title.
It looked like Wade wouldn’t be around for the return match, and then it looked like he was a prime candidate to become one of our favorite villains. But Tennessee now has its own problems, losers of three of four to Memphis, Cincinnati, and Wisconsin, the latter a 20-point blowout in the first game without Lamonte Turner.
The big picture for the SEC: the traffic jam in this league is backed up further than anyone wanted. Auburn is undefeated and ranked eighth, still yet to face anyone better than NC State (KenPom #35). Kentucky went 2-1 against Michigan State, Ohio State, and Louisville, but also lost to Evansville and Utah. Arkansas has been a nice surprise in Eric Musselman’s first season, 11-1 with an overtime loss to Western Kentucky. They just got their best win over Indiana (#37 KenPom).
Everyone else has experienced some level of disappointment:
Florida: 8-4 with losses to Florida State, UConn, Butler, and Utah State
LSU: 8-4 with losses to VCU, Utah State, ETSU, and USC
Tennessee: 8-4 with losses to Florida State, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Wisconsin
Mississippi State: 9-3 with losses to Villanova, Louisiana Tech, and New Mexico State
As such, the league has no teams in the KenPom Top 10, with Auburn (13), Kentucky (15), Florida (26), and Arkansas (31) leading the way at the moment. That next tier looks like the bubble: LSU (41), Tennessee (43), Mississippi State (48), and Missouri (53).
In the January 1 Bracket Matrix, Auburn is a three seed, Kentucky a six, Arkansas an eight. Then Tennessee and Florida are in Dayton, with LSU among the next four out.
It’s a tough look for a league that sent eight teams to the NCAA Tournament in 2018 and seven last year. Auburn and Arkansas are untested on an elite level, Kentucky has elite wins and bad losses, and the rest of the league’s tournament hopefuls have more losses than wins in major non-conference games.
It could also create the kind of gridlock that hurts everyone more than it helps them. KenPom’s SEC projections have eight teams finishing between 12-6 and 10-8 in conference play. It should make for a really exciting season, but for teams looking to move up that bracket you might need more separation than that.
Tennessee will have Sergio Vescovi available today. The Vol offense has plummeted to 90th in KenPom, 294th in three point shooting just under 30%. The first thing Vescovi can do is simply help Tennessee get better looks; the Wisconsin game got depressing in a hurry (a weird environment for a sold-out crowd) because the Badger defense did a great job making the Vols even less comfortable without Lamonte.
The highest-percentage scorers on this team are…John Fulkerson and Yves Pons. Pons is in the Top 200 nationally in effective field goal percentage, but got just four shots off against Wisconsin. And when Barnes says they want Fulkerson to shoot more, he’s not kidding: Fulky is 14th nationally in effective field goal percentage, and one of the few offensive bright spots in these last four games.
Tennessee’s SEC schedule is ridiculously back-loaded, but these first three games may be no friend to a team trying to figure out how to play without their point guard. LSU goes through their guards in a way few Tennessee opponents this season have. Javonte Smart and Skylar Mays will be a challenge. Tennessee is accustomed to playing defense-first teams: Memphis, Wisconsin, and Florida State are all Top 20 defenses in KenPom, while VCU, Cincinnati, and Washington all lean on defense more than offense. All of those teams also run a significant portion of their offense through their size.
So even though LSU is the first real threat this season to lean on its offense, because so much of that runs through their guard play while Tennessee is trying to figure out theirs, I’m not exactly sure that’s a good thing. For this game and beyond, Tennessee absolutely has to lean on its defense and play like its tournament fate depends on it, because it probably does.
After this one, the Vols go to Missouri on Tuesday night, then get South Carolina in Knoxville next Saturday. If I’m trying to break in a brand new point guard and learn how to play without the old one, catching LSU’s guards, Cuonzo Martin, and Frank Martin isn’t the ideal start.
But it’s the one we have, and the Vols should have another great crowd on hand today. Get better shots, get Vescovi worked in, and let’s see how far defense can take us. The ingredients for a feisty match-up with Will Wade’s team will still be there if the Vols respond better out of the gate.
High noon, ESPNU. Not sure the commercials are as good when you’re not working the night shift on ESPNU, but the Vols are going to have to win their way back to better networks.
Bowls always get an unequal piece of the pie, with an aftertaste lasting well into the off-season. We shouldn’t put too much on their outcome, we know. But throughout this contest, it really did feel like so much of what we’ve bemoaned and so much of what we wanted to validate about this year and this program were front and center. As such, there’s some piece of all of these issues we’ll rightfully be talking about in the months ahead:
Red Zone Issues!
After Tennessee’s opening drive was blown up by a holding penalty on the first snap, the Vols’ next three drives had:
1st-and-Goal at the 7
1st-and-10 at the 13, followed by 2nd-and-3 at the 6
1st-and-10 at the 13
And the Vols settled for a turnover on downs and two field goals.
We’ve got eight months to talk about Tennessee’s struggles in the red zone. We will use all the words. For all the good Tennessee actually did this season, they could’ve done even more with even average proficiency inside the 20. Instead, Tennessee ended the season scoring touchdowns (23) on less than half (47) of their red zone visits.
Had the Vols lost tonight, those three drives ending in only six points would’ve been culprit number one. Do not miss chances to put a team that might be happy to be there down three possessions.
Quarterback Drama!
Tennessee’s defense did everything right in the first half except stop Peyton Ramsey from scrambling when plays broke down. The Vols led 6-3 at halftime but had dominated statistically. The Hoosiers, to their credit, adjusted with a 12-play, 69-yard touchdown drive taking 5:31 off the clock to open the third quarter. Still, the box score showed no reason to worry. And Jauan Jennings was back!
Indiana knew it too.
A force to Jennings, whether by design or decision, led to Jarrett Guarantano’s second interception, this one returned to the house. Suddenly the Vols trailed 16-6 (thanks to a crucial missed extra point), and responded with…Brian Maurer.
It felt like a message-sending decision, right or wrong. Maurer, as he did at Florida several lifetimes ago, led the Vols downfield for three points while narrowly missing a couple of interceptions. Guarantano came right back in.
The Hoosiers – who deserve a lot of credit for doing plenty of little things in a game they were losing badly in the box score – nailed a 49-yard field goal to go back up 10. Guarantano went three-and-out. IU drove to 1st-and-10 at the Vol 16 yard line with 13 minutes to play. The Hoosiers’ win expectancy at this point via ESPN.com: 95.4%.
And then, they got cute: a give to Whop Philyor was blown up for a loss of seven, leading to another field goal and a 22-9 lead with 10:27 to play. And Guarantano went three-and-out again. IU’s win probability: 97.2%.
At this point, ye olde quarterback battle in spring practice was looking w-i-d-e open. It might still be, we’ll see. That’s still going to be a major talking point this off-season.
But Guarantano and the Vols weren’t dead yet.
Life From Death!
Tennessee got the ball back at their own 18 yard line with seven minutes to play. Some combination of Pruitt, Guarantano, and Jim Chaney made a simple adjustment: get your struggling quarterback going by checking it down to the running backs, with IU’s defense playing on its heels.
Coming in, Vol running backs had 26 catches in 12 games, 2.2 per contest. The first two plays of this drive went to Eric Gray underneath coverage for 34 yards. Then Jauan Jennings got in on the action for 22 more. Then it was back to the backs, this time Ty Chandler for eight more. On the night, Vol running backs caught six passes for 57 yards.
Tom Hart and Kenny Mayne have both mentioned on ESPN’s air that no team in college football had come back from down 13+ points with less than five minutes to go this season. After Jennings drew a pass interference call on 3rd-and-10, Quavaris Crouch punched it in from the one yard line to pull the Vols within six with 4:21 to play.
Then Guarantano to Palmer, plus facemask, plus Eric Gray from 16 yards out for the lead.
When we’re discussing the plays of the year, there are a handful of candidates that might not get remembered when we’re looking back on this decade in 2029. But in putting this season back together, there were so many little moments that mattered much: Guarantano to Tyler Byrd against Mississippi State, the blocked punt against South Carolina, the third-and-fourth-down stops at Kentucky. That onside kick – decision and execution – belong on that list, and maybe atop it. I think Kentucky will end up being the best team Tennessee beat this year, so that probably tips the scales. You don’t get to January without going through Kentucky. But now that we’re here, this kick set the tone for the entire off-season.
Tennessee out-gained the Hoosiers 374 to 303. Indiana scored one offensive touchdown. It’s a game somewhere between Missouri and Kentucky on the “we should’ve won that by more” scale. It’s a semi-fun truth: for all the good Tennessee did in this winning streak, they could’ve played even better. That was certainly true tonight.
But as adversity, self-inflicted or otherwise, presented itself, this Tennessee team again rose to the occasion. They did it in new and dramatic fashion tonight, coming from behind in a way no other team has this season. And they did it showing the same fight that got us to Jacksonville in the first place.
We’ll spend the off-season picking apart the red zone choices and wondering what exactly is going to happen at quarterback. But we’ll spend it on a six-game winning streak at the end of an 8-5 season – the third-best since 2008 – because at the end of a season that once was lost and now is found, the Vols almost gave it away tonight, then roared back better than ever.
New Year’s Day is one of my favorite holidays; I joke this time of year that many are spiritual in December’s holy days, but everyone is religious on January 1. It’s newness and grace on a calendar page. And there’s football!
January Matters.
In Tennessee’s upswing from 1989-2007, the Vols played in a traditional January bowl 15 times in 19 years. Tennessee stayed home in 2005, and caught back-to-back Peach Bowls in 2002 and 2003 (the latter was played on January 2, the only Peach/Chick-fil-A Bowl played in January between 1999 and its promotion to the College Football Playoff in 2014). And in December 1994, a freshman named Peyton Manning led the Vols to a 45-23 win over Virginia Tech in the Gator Bowl, which was played in The Swamp during construction on the Jacksonville Jaguars’ new stadium. That was the last of a four-year December run for the Gator Bowl, which returned to January the following season.
We rightfully hold up 1995-98 as Tennessee’s absolute peak: a 45-5 record in those four years was the best in college football, along with two SEC titles, a #2 finish in 1995, and a national championship. Extend it out to the “decade” of dominance from 1989-2001, when the Vols went 129-29-2 in 13 years, and that .813 winning percentage is the best in the SEC in that time (data via stassen.com). But Tennessee also had the best winning percentage in the SEC if you take it all the way to 1989-2007, decimal points ahead of the Gators (.7678) at 181-54-2 (.7679) in that 19-year run.
That math works out to around 10 wins a year in a 13-game season, 10.5 wins if you use the .813 percentage from 1989-2001. It was both expectation and celebration, and it almost always ended in January. We grew accustomed to starting the new year with football. And that, like many other things, has changed since 2008.
Let the (recent!) past die.
After appearing in traditional January 1 bowls 15 times in 19 years from 1989-2007, the Vols have been twice in the last dozen years. Tomorrow will make three.
Playing in any bowl game has become a 50/50 proposition: this season’s Gator Bowl is just the sixth time in these last twelve years Tennessee made the postseason at all. The Vols found their way to January following the 2014 (Gator) and 2015 (Outback) seasons, plus a pair of Music City Bowls and the December Chick-fil-A Bowl in Lane Kiffin’s 2009 season.
As is the case when you’re building a program, what you celebrate early shouldn’t be what you celebrate often. This year – especially this year, given how things looked in September – Tennessee making it to the Gator Bowl is a job well done. As we’ve been saying since May, if the Vols win, an 8-5 finish would be the third-best record of these last dozen years, bested only by a pair of 9-4’s from Butch Jones in 2015-16 that left so much more on the table.
The math is noteworthy for the 2019 team at the close of the decade as well: assigning the Gator Bowl outcome to the last decade will break a 62-62 tie for the Vols since 2010.
After having the SEC’s best winning percentage from 1989-2007, the Vols are 11th in the league from 2008-2019, besting only Arkansas, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt. The 2010’s stick out like a sore thumb in Tennessee’s own past:
Decade
W
L
Pct
2010s
62
62
0.500
2000s
83
44
0.654
1990s
99
22
0.818
1980s
77
37
0.675
1970s
75
39
0.658
1960s
67
32
0.677
1950s
72
31
0.699
Tennessee historically wins between 65-70% of its games, averaging around 8.75 wins per year in a 13-game season. Should the Vols return to their own historical precedent, an 8-5 season would be rightfully considered below average.
All of this is why it’s really interesting to me that this game comes at the landmark of a new decade. You can’t redeem a decade-plus of frustration by beating Indiana to get one game over .500 the last 10 years. But a win could be the last, best example of what has a chance to be the greatest legacy of the 2019 Vols.
And if you don’t love me now
When the Vols lost to Georgia State and BYU, we wrote that progress – the only thing that mattered this season – should be measured not to the top, but from the bottom. Remarkably, this team still found a way to put the third-best year of the last dozen back on the table.
All these years and all these words about getting “back” have usually been in reference to those peak years: the late 90’s, or even that “decade” of dominance. But Tennessee is still trying to get back to being Tennessee: a program that can call a nine-win season average, allowing us to realistically hope for something more every fall and play football most Januaries.
This team, at the end of this decade, fought their way from its lowest point. And if Jeremy Pruitt and the Vols return to Tennessee’s historical success in the next decade, this group can forever be remembered as a bridge between the two, and one of the most important links in the Volunteer chain.
It’s true for those who will play their final game in a Tennessee uniform against Indiana: Jennings and Callaway, Bituli and Taylor, Nigel Warrior and probably Trey Smith. And it’s true for those who have a chance to shine tomorrow and even brighter in 2020: Jarrett Guarantano, a host of running backs, freshmen who aren’t freshmen anymore, and guys like Bryce Thompson who are one game away from being the upperclassmen leaders.
We’ve seen a lot of new and unusual in these last ten years, perhaps nothing on the field more so than these last twelve games. Against the odds, this team won their way to a thirteenth opportunity in January. They are, like all who wear orange, tied to Tennessee’s past. And they are laying the foundation for a better future, with one opportunity left.
It’s a new year, and Tennessee is playing football in January. So far, so good.
It’s one thing to hit four game-winners (or send-it-to-overtimers) in your career. Lamonte Turner hit the biggest shot in three of Tennessee’s biggest wins the last two years, plus a fourth last month that could prove incredibly helpful as this team now scrambles for the bracket:
The Purdue win in the Bahamas started all of this. The win at Rupp was 2018’s biggest. And the win over Kentucky in the 2019 SEC Tournament doesn’t earn any banners like an SEC title or the Sweet 16, but was a crowning achievement for this program and its last two teams.
This team is 8-3 and not 7-4 in part because Lamonte splashed that three against VCU, giving Tennessee a pair of Top 50 wins in KenPom. We will need them.
Turner’s Tennessee career is over, shut down with upcoming shoulder surgery that will hopefully enable his basketball career to continue on a professional level. The timing is jarring, but the news not all that surprising; we’ve watched Lamonte struggle with his shoulder for multiple seasons. To his credit, as we pointed out after the Cincinnati loss, each time he got better as the year went along: one of the best three-point shooters in the SEC in 2018, one of the best two-point shooters in the SEC in 2019. But I’m sure at a certain point there’s no getting better without shutting it all down.
It’s funny how quickly things can change: gone, just like that, are five of the six faces that made the last two years so very memorable. Thanks in large part to the performances of those teams, new faces we hope will be equally memorable are on the way next season.
In the middle is the rest of this season: one senior in Jordan Bowden, and only eight scholarship players left on the roster. Let’s push pause on point guard Santiago Vescovi, who will be eligible to play after the fall semester (similar to Jarnell Stokes as a freshman). Barnes originally said there was little chance he played this season; those chances hit a growth spurt over the weekend.
But even if you don’t include Vescovi in this group, next season you’ll have Keon Johnson, Jaden Springer, Corey Walker, Uros Plavsic, and Oregon transfer Victor Bailey. Those five plus Vescovi and Josiah James will make for a core group of seven players that weren’t around in 2019. Fulkerson and Pons will be seniors; that’s nine.
I point that out to say this: the guys Tennessee will have to rely on right now – Olivier Nkamhoua, Davonte Gaines, Drew Pember, Jalen Johnson – have an opportunity to carve out a bigger role for themselves this season, before the body count ups the competition for everyone next season. There will be a separate conversation about finding the right mix with so many new faces next season. For now, these eight players – Bowden, James, Fulkerson, Pons, Nkamhoua, Gaines, Pember, and Johnson (plus Vescovi, maybe) – have the rest of the 2020 season in front of them.
Tennessee is a six seed in the December 20 Bracket Matrix, appearing in 16 of 18 brackets that have been updated since the Cincinnati loss at anywhere from a five to an eleven seed. The Vols host Wisconsin (#51 KenPom) on Saturday and travel to Kansas on January 25 in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. Everything else is the SEC.
Cincinnati wasn’t a great loss, but the Vols made it through the non-conference without any truly bad losses. And there are really only two options for such a thing in the SEC: first-year coaches at Texas A&M, who the Vols face in Knoxville, and Vanderbilt, who the Vols play twice. Those two teams currently hover around 140th in KenPom. The league doesn’t appear to have an elite team; we’ll see about Auburn, who’s 11-0 but hasn’t played anyone better than NC State (36th in KenPom). The Tigers have run through the Bruce Pearl special of really good mid-majors, beating Davidson, Colgate, New Mexico, Richmond, Furman, and Saint Louis.
Still, while there are no SEC teams in the KenPom Top 10, the league’s top tier places four teams in the Top 30 plus Arkansas at 37. Everyone other than A&M and Vanderbilt is in the Top 90.
We’ll preview the conference more fully after Wisconsin, but I say all that to say this: Tennessee just needs wins. The Vols beat Washington and VCU and avoided catastrophe. A 12-8 finish gets Tennessee to 20-11 on the year. The schedule and the league should be good enough that I don’t think we’ll end up arguing about which wins they did or didn’t get if it comes down to the bubble (though keep in mind, Tennessee’s SEC schedule is insanely back-loaded; some of this conversation will just have to wait until mid-February).
And right now, just making the tournament is a good goal for this team. We would’ve been talking about a rebuilding year from the beginning if Lamonte wasn’t going to be around. Now, it’s rebuilding on the fly. How might it look without #1 out there?
The first question is simple math. In every game that’s been in doubt in the second half this season (other than Cincinnati when he picked up two fouls early), Lamonte has played between 36-40 minutes. Against the Bearcats, Davonte Gaines was the beneficiary in the first half: 17 minutes and four points, all at the stripe. Jalen Johnson has more experience and might get the start against the Badgers, but the coaching staff appears to trust Gaines more already.
Tennessee averages right at 16 assists per game, and is eighth nationally in assist percentage. Lamonte was responsible for more than seven assists per game. So now, who facilitates the offense?
Again, put a pin in Vescovi. Your other options for primary ball-handler are Jordan Bowden and Josiah James. Many of us assumed coming into the year that James would get backup point guard minutes, but in big games Lamonte just basically played the whole time. That’s one question with Josiah: is he the point guard next year? If that’s the idea, he’s about to get a lot of practice. The alternative is Bowden, who went from being the third scoring option on the floor to the first. His three-point percentage is still solid (37.3%), but his effective field goal percentage is down from last year because his looks have been much more difficult. What changes with his game if you put the ball in his hands much more often? Can one or both of these guys still run Tennessee’s offense in a way that creates non-difficult opportunities for Fulkerson and Pons?
Even before Lamonte got hurt, the Memphis and Cincinnati games showed, in good and bad ways, how much this team needs its defense. Lamonte was Tennessee’s best perimeter defender in terms of forcing turnovers both this year and last year. This is probably the biggest question for Davonte Gaines, Jalen Johnson, and anyone else getting ready to play more minutes: where are you on this end of the floor?
More on Wisconsin after Christmas, but the Badgers do play at Tennessee’s pace and rely on 6’11” center Nate Reuvers for a lot of what they do. We’ll learn more about what the Vols can do without Turner against strong guard play when LSU comes to town the following Saturday.
Turner’s absence is heartbreaking, but he leaves with incredible memories behind and hopefully a professional basketball future ahead. Tennessee as a team has the same memories in the past and a bright hope for the future. In the now, this team will try to make the tournament while answering big questions for the future. It’s an interesting moment for Josiah James, and a big opportunity for Davonte Gaines, Jalen Johnson, and everyone else with a chance to make a name for themselves a little earlier than they thought.
On December 31, 2009, I was headed back from Atlanta after a loss to Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. We couldn’t find a countdown on the radio in English, so my friend and I welcomed in the new decade in Spanish. The Hokies pulled away late to win 37-14, but there was plenty of optimism for Lane Kiffin in year two. Earlier in the day Bruce Pearl’s Vols won at Memphis. Things had been difficult in moving on from Fulmer, but we were hopeful order would be restored soon.
January 1, 2010 began with four basketball Vols getting arrested. Nine days later the Vols beat #1 Kansas without those players. Two days later, Kiffin left in the middle of the night. And the 2010’s were off and running.
It hasn’t been what any of us wanted ten years ago. The Gator Bowl, assigned to the 2019 season, will decide if the Vols finish above or below .500 for the decade. The basketball Vols made it back to number one and won another conference crown, but we’re still waiting for a second trip to the Elite Eight and our first to the Final Four. And everything changed for the Lady Vols, who won national titles in 2007 and 2008 but haven’t seen the Final Four since.
The craziness of those first dozen days set the tone for much of what would follow. But even in these turbulent years, there have been moments to celebrate. Here, in chronological order, are our favorite things from the last ten years:
The Elite Eight
I’ve been writing on the Vols for 14 years, and the 2009-10 basketball season is still my favorite story. The win over Kansas wasn’t just without four players, but saw just 14 minutes from J.P. Prince and 19 from Wayne Chism due to foul trouble. And the Vols won anyway, thanks to 9-of-18 from the arc including 4-of-6 from Renaldo Woolridge.
We’re all used to John Calipari at Kentucky and one-and-dones today, but in 2010 – Calipari’s first season in Lexington – that John Wall/DeMarcus Cousins group of UK players were rock stars. They came to Knoxville 27-1, and left 27-2.
And then to break through against two-seed Ohio State in the Sweet 16 after the crushing loss to the Buckeyes three years earlier, behind 22 points and 11 rebounds from Wayne Chism. The Vols let Evan Turner have his (31 points), but absolutely locked down the rest of Ohio State’s options. The 2010 Vols finished 28-9, were a six seed in the tournament, and five Tennessee teams since 2006 have finished with a higher rating in KenPom. But no one danced longer.
Tyler Bray vs Cincinnati
34-of-41 for 405 yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions. Justin Hunter: 10 catches for 156. Da’Rick Rogers: 10 for 100. It all came crashing down to injury the next few weeks, but in this moment – a 45-23 win over Butch Jones and a Cincinnati team that finished the year ranked – other than the first half of the 2016 season, I’m not sure I ever walked out of Neyland Stadium more confident that we were “back” at any point this decade.
Cordarrelle Patterson
You forget how spectacular he was because we went 5-7 and spent most of the year talking about Derek Dooley, but remember this (and maybe mute your sound):
Two Weeks in February 2013
The Vols were 13-10 (5-6) coming to the end of Cuonzo Martin’s second season. And then, in four consecutive games:
Beat Kentucky by thirty (30) points
Beat LSU behind 34 points from Jordan McRae
Beat Texas A&M in four overtimes
Beat #8 Florida
I’m sure Cuonzo and many of us would call the run to the Sweet 16 from Dayton the peak of his tenure in Knoxville. But because so many people had jumped ship by that point, these end of these two weeks was the time you felt most confident in him. The Vols lost at Georgia, won two more to close out the regular season, lost in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals, and were again broken by the bubble. It’s hard to make lasting memories if your season doesn’t end in the NCAA Tournament, but these four games were a joy individually and felt like they could have been even more collectively.
Josh Dobbs Arrives at South Carolina
If you want the most rewatchable game of the decade – one not tied to any “yeah, but…” conversations like 2016 – it’s Tennessee at South Carolina in 2014.
Dobbs in this game: 23-of-40 for 301 yards passing, plus 24 carries for 166 yards rushing, five total touchdowns. Whatever you think of whatever happened with Butch Jones, the things we first wanted to believe about Dobbs on this night generally came true. An incredible individual game, enabling the Vols to once again get the last word on Steve Spurrier, and an initial step to one of the best Tennessee careers of the decade.
Josh Richardson
When the decade began, C.J. Watson was Tennessee’s lone NBA representative. Tobias Harris would join him in 2011 after a one-and-done campaign. From Cuonzo’s teams, no one would’ve picked Richardson to have the best NBA career. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Tennessee player get better from one year to the next in a four-year career like this:
Year
PPG
Minutes
3PT%
FT%
2012
2.9
16
23.7
64
2013
7.9
30.7
21.4
69.2
2014
10.3
30.4
34
79.3
2015
16
36.3
35.9
79.8
The Outback Bowl & 2016 Off-Season
Beating Northwestern 45-6 doesn’t doesn’t ring any bells around here despite the kind of decade we’ve had, though it’s still Tennessee’s most dominant win over a ranked team since 1990. And the Outback Bowl is still Tennessee’s most prestigious destination since playing in the Cotton following the 2004 season.
But what that win enabled for the next eight months sure was fun.
And despite what happened in the second half of 2016, that preseason hype was earned by the near misses of 2015. The Vols were preseason #7 using a magazine consensus. It’s been a long time, before and after, since we’ve been able to anticipate that kind of year.
One Half of That Kind of Year
All of them come with a tinge of disappointment for the way 2016 ended, but all three are still incredibly unique:
The Battle at Bristol, the all-time attendance record for college football
The only win over Florida since 2004 and the second-largest comeback in Neyland Stadium history
The Hail Mary, which to my knowledge still doubles as Tennessee’s only walk-off win on an offensive touchdown in regulation in school history
As we wrote a couple of times in the midst of this stretch, getting down 14-0 in the largest attended football game in human history was only the fourth-most-stressful thing to happen to Tennessee in the first five games.
You can argue Jauan Jennings’ catch is both the apex of that season and the decade in football, the Vols using up the last of their magic. But it joins, “Did you turn off The Miracle at South Bend?” and “Did you try to leave the stadium before Stoerner fumbled?” as one of the best “Where were you when it happened?” moments in my Tennessee lifetime.
Fulmer’s Return
Bad seasons come and go, but the most vulnerable Tennessee’s athletic department has been in my lifetime was in the aftermath of Schiano Sunday after John Currie was fired. It only lasted a few hours, but to have no idea who’s in charge or who would be in charge after a week of insanity at the end of a decade of the same…it was a nervous moment.
The answer was Fulmer, who to this day gives me comfort on a simple, human level: I know the guy in charge of the thing I love loves it even more than I do.
For whatever experience I’ve gained in my 38 years or things I’ve learned in writing about the Vols for 14 years, that simple truth stays around. You don’t have to have that dynamic to be successful. But there’s an undeniable confidence when you do have it. And at the end of the craziest week at the end of the worst football season in program history, I’m still glad Phillip Fulmer was holding the keys.
Basketball Back on the National Level
In the midst of all the football insanity, I think the most divisive Tennessee conversation of this decade was still Cuonzo Martin by a healthy margin. Even in defending him the way I and others did, there was a stubborn belief that Bruce Pearl – even if we believed he was never coming back here – represented Tennessee’s highest ceiling.
Tennessee lucked into Rick Barnes. But in a decade when both chemistry and timing worked so hard and so often against us, the Vols got that one absolutely right.
The November 2017 win over Purdue was quickly forgotten in the midst of Schiano Sunday, but it started everything we’re enjoying now: 26-9 with an SEC title in 2018, 31-6 with a month at number one and a Sweet 16 in 2019, and the number four recruiting class in the nation for next season. Along the way (and thanks to UCLA), Tennessee and Phillip Fulmer upped Barnes’ salary to put the Vols in elite program territory in men’s basketball.
Barnes is 6-4 against Kentucky, and sent three Vols to the NBA Draft last season. Grant Williams is probably Tennessee’s athlete of the decade. Along the way there have been memorable individual plays…
…and far more wins the whole team shares. From Purdue to the first win at Rupp since 2006 in 2018, then taking down #1 Gonzaga – the best team Tennessee has beaten in the KenPom era – embarrassing Kentucky in Knoxville, and getting another 2-1 season advantage on the Cats in the SEC Tournament last year. If what Pearl’s teams did was the best positive story of Tennessee’s last decade, what Barnes and his teams are doing now is the best positive story of this one.
You Just Never Know
All the years, all the games, and sometimes you still get a loss to Georgia State in the opener and the first time the Vols covered the spread six weeks in a row since 1990 in the same season.
Football ends the decade no closer to the mountaintop than when it began: a 7-5 regular season heading to a bowl game, with positive momentum in recruiting and optimism for the future. We still don’t know.
But this year taught us we also never know, not really. And that’s one of the great things about sports. This decade saw a six seed make it one possession from the Final Four, our most talented football teams in 2012 and 2015-16 underachieve, a group of three-stars spend a month ranked number one, and a little bit of everything from this football season.
More than anything, this decade reinforces an old truth: we come back, year after year, not for the winning – though that’s preferable! – but for the experience itself.
So here’s to another ten years of great stories, great characters, and great memories. We’re never boring. And we’re always here.
Lamonte Turner’s shoulder is an issue that may not go away. I hate that for him most of all; via KenPom, Turner shot 45.2% in conference play from the arc in 2018, second-best in the SEC. Then he shot 61% from inside the arc in league play last year, seventh-best. In both cases he got better as the year went along, so maybe there’s some hope there. But this year he’s shooting 23.4% from the arc (11-of-47) and 32.9% inside it. He’s still 11th nationally in assist rate, but when he’s removed as a scoring option those assists get much harder to come by as defenses adjust elsewhere.
Three point shooting again wasn’t great – 3-of-15 – but at least this time the Vols didn’t settle for 26+. After starting the season hot as a team, now only Jordan Bowden (36.7% and working hard for a clean look) and Yves Pons (32.3%) are above 30% from the arc; the Vols are at 29.7% as a team, 280th nationally. Tennessee has played a handful of really good defenses, but Cincinnati was not among them.
Tennessee’s own defense, great all year, failed them last night. The Bearcats shot 56.4% from the floor with an effective field goal percentage of 60.9%. Only Purdue, with their flame-throwing 15 threes, hit better than 60% eFG% against the Vols last season, when defense didn’t have to be such a priority. This team now has little choice to prioritize anything else.
One thing that might encompass all of this: everyone playing a new role. Lamonte, shoulder at whatever percentage, is carrying an incredible load at point guard. Bowden, the beneficiary of being the third-through-fifth option last season depending on who else was on the floor, is now asked to be the primary. When Tennessee’s offense has worked well – Washington and VCU – the formula has included some combination of Bowden hitting shots, Turner getting to the free throw line, and consistent inside scoring from Pons (Washington) or Fulkerson (VCU). We were hopeful this model could win games while Josiah James came along and the freshmen off the bench sorted themselves out.
But when that formula gets disrupted, defense is the only option. It genuinely gave Tennessee a chance to beat Memphis anyway. When defense goes away, there’s little the Vols can do until a new formula arrives or a freshman emerges. Last night Cincinnati’s two best players had four fouls early in the second half. It made little difference.
The preseason thought was a split of the six big non-conference games before Kansas would earn a “that’s about right” head nod. When the Vols handled Washington, lost to Florida State for obvious turnover-related reasons, then beat VCU while Cincinnati and Wisconsin struggled, we could get appropriately greedy. That early split is still available if the Vols beat Wisconsin, but as always, we’re adjusting on the fly.
The Vols dropped to 29th in KenPom (55th offense, 19th defense), which projects them to finish 20-11 in the regular season. The Vols host Jacksonville State on Saturday, then Wisconsin the following Saturday, then SEC play begins with a visit from LSU (shout out to Steve Forbes) on Saturday, January 4. The Vols go to Kansas in late January for the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
One point we’ll make when we get to league play: for the second year in a row, Tennessee’s SEC schedule is ridiculously back-loaded. The best non-Vol teams in the league – Kentucky, Auburn, Florida, and Arkansas – don’t appear on the schedule at all until February 8 (Cats in Knoxville), and Tennessee’s last five games are exclusively against that tier (at Auburn, at Arkansas, vs Florida, at Kentucky, vs Auburn). So whatever we think we’re learning about this team in league play will come with a, “Well, we’ll see…”. Tennessee can change a lot of its bracket fate, good or bad, in those last three weeks. Until then, and as usual, everything is about getting better:
#Vols coach Rick Barnes: We made this schedule knowing we might be in this position. We knew it was possible. But that’s not a reason to play more buy games. That’s even more reason to play a schedule like ours. Let’s see what we’ve got early and then fix it.
I’m stealing that line from old friend of the blog Chris Pendley, and it’s true. If the Vols shot 4-of-26 from three in just about any other game and still almost win, you shrug your shoulders and move on to the next one. If the Vols continue to take 26 threes per game or make only four of them, then you panic. It’s early, but right now the Vols sit 282nd in KenPom’s luck ratings.
Tennessee is 2-2 in marquee non-conference affairs. The two that remain before the calendar turns to 2020 were originally thought to be the biggest tests. But while the Vols are on pace for about what we thought they’d be – still projecting at 21 regular season wins in KenPom, a six seed in the Bracket Matrix, 21st in the AP poll and 25th in NET – Cincinnati and Wisconsin have taken a turn for the worst.
The Rick Barnes What-If Bowl
With Barnes in Knoxville, Mick Cronin left Cincinnati after 13 years and took the UCLA job.
(Quick sidenote: I still do a lot of reading from SB Nation blogs, especially when we’re playing teams outside the SEC. If you’ve followed us throughout the years at Rocky Top Talk, here, or enjoy the good work done by fans of other teams writing in a freelance capacity, you might be interested to learn more about what’s happening to those who write for California-based teams. Bruins Nation was one of the first SB Nation sites I interacted with after starting at Rocky Top Talk when Kiffin was hired, and always found good writing and analysis there whenever I was curious about something happening at UCLA. All the best to their team.)
Steve Alford’s last two years at Westwood saw a loss in Dayton and a 17-16 finish. Mick Cronin is 7-4 in the early stages there. Meanwhile, John Brannen is in his first year at Cincinnati after four years and two NCAA Tournament appearances at Northern Kentucky.
We almost ran into these guys in each of the last two seasons. Last year the Bearcats lost to Iowa in the first round before we beat the Hawkeyes in the second. And two years ago Cincinnati was the two seed in our region, falling to Nevada in round two the same day we lost to Loyola Chicago.
They brought back their top three scorers, but have stumbled out of the gates. Some of it is strength of schedule: losses on the road to usually-good Xavier and an unusually-good Ohio State team, currently number one in KenPom. Cincinnati also did something I’m not sure I’ve seen before: three straight overtime games, including a loss to Bowling Green and wins over Valparaiso and UNLV. Their last game was particularly costly: Colgate – who is feisty, as we’ll attest to – won at Cincinnati as a result of this endgame sequence:
Disaster of a finish for Cincinnati, which will host Tennessee on Wednesday. The Bearcats lost to Colgate by 1. pic.twitter.com/1KQkBJFZns
The thought coming into the year was these six teams – Washington, Florida State, VCU/Purdue, Memphis, Cincinnati, and Wisconsin – were all on Tennessee’s level, all somewhere between a 4-8 seed in the NCAA Tournament. In the Bracket Matrix this week, it mostly holds up: the Vols at six, Washington at eight, Florida State at four, VCU down a bit at 10, Memphis at five. But Cincinnati appears in just one entry in the matrix, and Wisconsin – 5-5 and headed to Knoxville on December 28 – is in just three (of 27).
First-Year Problems (and Solutions?)
The Bearcats returned leading scorer Jarron Cumberland (18.8 per game last year), added his cousin Jaevin as a grad transfer from Oakland, and brought back guard Keith Williams and 6’8″ forward Tre Scott, all upperclassmen. But this team has problems that look like what a first-year coach might expect: after leading the nation in fewest steals allowed in 2019, Cincinnati is 281st in turnover percentage this season and 323rd in non-steal turnovers.
There’s also the emergence of 7’1″ Chris Vogt who transferred in with Brannen from Northern Kentucky. After playing less than 20 minutes in the first two games, he’s emerged as a primary option: double figure scoring in every game after the opener at Ohio State, 16 points in 26 minutes against Colgate, 24th nationally in effective field goal percentage. Foul trouble can be an issue with him, but we’ll yet again get to see the Vols at a size disadvantage.
Like the Memphis game, there’s a part of me that wants to type, “This should be a game Tennessee’s veterans win.” Tennessee’s defense – now 11th nationally in KenPom and fifth in effective field goal percentage allowed – can take advantage of a turnover-prone team still learning a new system. Having played Ohio State, the Bearcats won’t be intimidated by the #21 Vols. But Tennessee’s best basketball this season won’t be about intimidation. If the mantra after Florida State was straightforward, not spectacular, I think it’s still true after Memphis…I’d just add, “And don’t miss 22 threes.”
We’ll see what we learned at 7:00 PM ET tonight on ESPN2, or if any learning was necessary if the Vols can knock down open threes.
