Author Archives: Will Shelton

The Vols continue to play at an all-time pace in Knoxville, by any metric you want. In raw wins, 17-3 through the first 20 games trails only 2000 (18-2), 2008 (18-2), and 2019 (19-1). In the polls, the 2000 Vols topped out at #5, while both 2008 and 2019 went to #1. This group sits at #4, with #10 Texas headed to town tomorrow.

In the Bracket Matrix, the Vols are the first two seed. In Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology, the Vols are the last number one seed with Texas the first two, adding to the Elite Eight atmosphere surrounding tomorrow’s game.

It’s KenPom where the case for the current Vols is strongest: a 29.53 rating continues to represent what would be a program high, as well as an SEC high in the last eight years. As was the case against Kentucky, the Vols will go to a big Saturday home game with a chance to move to number one in KenPom, less than a point behind Houston at the moment.

The loss to Kentucky – and probably the fact that this team’s best win came away from our presence in Knoxville vs Kansas – makes it tempting for some of us to question whether this team is really the best we’ve seen at UT. That’s been a really fun conversation this week from Wes Rucker and Will Warren.

I think there are two parts of this conversation worth mentioning again. First, KenPom places a value on every possession, much like SP+ does with every snap. When Bill Connelly went back through the archives and rated the best teams of each decade by percentile, it was Heath Shuler’s 1993 Vols who rated highest at UT in the 90s in SP+. No one would pick 1993 as the best season. But play-for-play, that team was a machine: they lost 41-34 in The Swamp, tied the defending champs from Alabama in Birmingham, and destroyed everyone else in the regular season. They beat #22 Georgia by 32 and #13 Louisville by 35. That’s how you rate so highly. In metrics that value possessions and snaps over the final outcome – and don’t put any special value on the fourth quarter or the last two minutes – you get a good picture of how a team performs play-for-play. And possession-for-possession, the 2023 Vols are as good as anything we’ve seen here in basketball.

But the other part of this is, of course, that the season isn’t over. So when we’re comparing the present to the past, we’re comparing an incomplete picture to a finished work.

The two most popular answers for what has been better – 2008 and 2019 – have arguments that lead with their number one ranking. To me, they also both have stories that end with results that, even though we hated them, make sense. The 2008 Vols ran into a bad match-up buzzsaw with three-seed Louisville in the Sweet 16, and lost by 19. The 2019 Vols ran into Ryan Cline shooting 7-of-10 from the arc and some frustrating officiating in the final minute; replay that game all you want, and I’m still not exactly sure what we’d like the Vols to do much differently in it. But the simplicity of those answers made them easier to accept, at least over time.

One key difference in each of those years as well though: 2008 and 2019 were all-time college basketball years. In 2008, all four number one seeds made the Final Four. In 2019, you had elite versions of Gonzaga, Duke with Zion, and a Virginia team that is one of the best college basketball teams of the last 10 years. In KenPom, three teams finished at 30+ in 2008, five in 2019.

Right now, Houston is the only team at 30+, with the Vols right behind them at 29.59. For the moment, that’s it.

We need the full season to know what we think about the 2023 Vols. Sometimes, at this point, things look one way and end up another. The 2001 Vols started 16-1 but finished in the 8/9 game. And the 2022 Vols were 14-6 (5-3) at this point, fresh off a last-second loss to Texas. They won 13 of their next 14, including the SEC Tournament, jumping from 14th to 7th in KenPom.

Some of the most fun you can have with this conversation right now is to mad scientist it. Because when we’re talking about what we think is better than right now, in part I think we’re talking about it like this:

2018 Defense + 2019 Offense

This one we can quantify: in KenPom, if you put the 2018 defense (sixth nationally) and the 2019 offense (third nationally) together, you’d have a rating of approximately 30.3, which would be the best in program history. It’s not far from where the 2023 Vols are right now. But in at least that metric, it would be the leader in the clubhouse.

It’s how we sometimes think of that group, because the faces are all mostly the same. One exception: James Daniel, who had the highest steal rate on the 2018 group. As we speculated throughout the 2019 season, perhaps there was simply the human nature element of focus with that group: when you’re number one for a month running through a back-loaded SEC schedule, it’s understandably easier to loosen up a bit on defense. We also saw that group turn it way back up when facing Kentucky in Knoxville. But if you take the very best of that two-year run, it would represent the program’s very best basketball…for now.

March 2010 & March 2014

The Tennessee team that went the farthest was 20-7 (8-5) on February 23. But they finally got all their rotation back when Brian Williams returned to the lineup. And from that point, they went 8-2. They beat the Wall/Cousins NBA D-League team in Knoxville. They smashed an NIT 1-seed in Starkville. And they made it to the Elite Eight by going through the Evan Turner Ohio State squad, finishing a point away from the Final Four. That season was a roller coaster, and it led to plenty of lineup changes. But that core group at the end – Bobby Maze, Scotty Hopson, J.P. Prince, Wayne Chism, and Brian Williams – was a really good college basketball team.

In the figured-it-out department, no Tennessee team got there later than Cuonzo Martin’s last squad. On February 22 they were 16-11 (7-7). They also finished 8-2, jumping from 26th to 7th in KenPom. Six of those wins came by 15+ points, with what was another really good college basketball team: Antonio Barton, Jordan McRae, Josh Richardson, Jeronne Maymon, and Jarnell Stokes. Possession for possession, you wouldn’t consider either of those teams as the best in Tennessee history. But at the end of the year, they were absolutely playing their best basketball, and became the two teams that came closest to the Final Four.

2007 Chris Lofton in 2008

Not sure how to quantify it, and there’s obviously nothing to do with it other than celebrate Lofton’s recovery from cancer. But when we think about those teams, we never really got to see this hypothetical peak…and the actual peaks, including the win at Memphis in the 1 vs 2 game, were so high, we never really needed to ask for more. But if you’re talking about how those teams might be best suited to beat the current squad, it’s this version of it in our heads – Lofton at full strength with the added presence of Tyler Smith – that we’re sometimes assuming.

Alllllllll of that to say…if the current Vols are simply in the conversation of being as good or better than these teams, real or hypothetical?

This season has every opportunity to be special.

And that continues tomorrow, in a huge one with Texas.

Go Vols.

The Vols are back in that “one game away from #1 in KenPom” range, with Houston’s loss to Temple shaking up college basketball’s pecking order. In the hunt for the four number one seeds, we can continue to simplify the conversation this way:

• One Loss: Purdue
• Two Losses: Alabama, Houston, Kansas State
• Three Losses: Arizona, Auburn, Kansas, Tennessee, Texas, UCLA, Virginia

In the last five non-covid-affected NCAA Tournaments, one seeds averaged 4.5 losses on Selection Sunday, two seeds 6.25 losses. A season with far fewer blue-bloods at the top may play with those averages long before we get to March; the Big 12 will certainly continue to cannibalize. The SEC puts three teams on the above list. But in KenPom, brackets, polls, you name it…there’s a clear separation with the top two.

While the Vols are pursuing the top spot in KenPom and a program record, consider where they – and the Crimson Tide – currently fall on the list of the best SEC teams in KenPom since the 2015 Kentucky juggernaut:

Top SEC KenPom Teams, 2016-2023

Team	Year	KenPom	Finish
Tennessee	2023	28.96
Alabama	2023	28.00
Kentucky	2017	27.72	E8
Kentucky	2019	27.57	E8
Florida	2017	27.50	E8
Tennessee	2019	26.24	S16
Kentucky	2022	25.72	R1
Kentucky	2016	25.14	R2
Tennessee	2022	25.10	R2
Alabama	2021	25.09	S16
Auburn	2019	25.00	F4

So yeah, the Vols are good.

So is Bama, but we can’t solve that one until February 15. The Vols get Georgia on Wednesday night, then Texas in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. That’s a bit of a miss this year: the Vols have already beaten Kansas, and we’ll see how they fare in Rupp. But other than UT and the false UT, the leagues’ best teams don’t run right into each other: Alabama gets Oklahoma, Auburn gets West Virginia, Iowa State gets Missouri, Kansas State gets Florida.

Within the SEC, KenPom projects Alabama to finish 16-2, then Tennessee at 15-3, then three full games of separation to Auburn at 12-6. It may indeed become a two-team race. But the Vols also find themselves in the hunt with a dozen or so teams to get the program’s first one seed. We may come to the end of this thing not feeling real confident in any one team as the top overall seed. For Tennessee, the geography is valuable: a Louisville region is a much better prize than Kansas City, Las Vegas, or New York. That will, of course, put the Vols in direct competition with Alabama (and Purdue) to land there.

There’s plenty of basketball left here. But the Vols aren’t just playing well to the eyeballs, or in the context of this season that carries no Duke or Carolina at the top. Tennessee is, right now, playing at a more efficient level than any SEC team since 2015 Kentucky. And Alabama is right behind them.

Lots of fun out there in these next few weeks.

Go Vols.

At the under eight in Starkville, Tennessee led 50-49. The Vols got five straight points from Zakai Zeigler, then traded four consecutive threes with Mississippi State in a wild sequence. The last of them, an open look from Josiah-Jordan James, put Tennessee up 61-55 with 4:34 to play.

Fun moments followed: a contested three from Olivier Nkamhoua, an alley-oop to Jonas Aidoo. But the constant, even with two guards down and Uros Plavsic nursing a turned ankle, remains defense: Mississippi State didn’t hit a shot for three and a half minutes. Their lone bucket in the final 4:34 was already too late, and Tennessee pulled away for a 70-59 win.

The second half three point shooting gets the headlines, and rightfully so. But as for what’s repeatable – assuming 8-for-9 from the arc is asking a little much – I continue to be drawn to the different things the Vols can do with their lineups, both by force and by choice.

Last year, Rick Barnes increased the size of his rotation. Eight-man groups in 2019 and 2020 gave way to a glorified seven-man rotation in 2021, one quickly undone by foul trouble. So in 2022, the Vols went ten deep:

2022 Rotation

• 29-31 minutes: Vescovi, Chandler, Josiah
• 22 minutes: Zeigler, Fulky, Nkamhoua
• 13-14 minutes: Powell, Plavsic, BHH
• 10 minutes: Bailey

There’s some fluidity in there with Olivier going down on February 5. Jonas Aidoo stepped in and finished the season at around eight minutes per game. The day before Nkamhoua’s injury, we looked at some of these numbers and noted the different closing lineups the Vols were putting on the floor. But it was easier to define what represented Tennessee’s best basketball down the stretch, especially when it involved a one-and-done point guard. Against Kentucky in the SEC Tournament, the Vols closed with the three point guard group of Chandler, Vescovi, Zeigler, with Josiah at the four and John Fulkerson. Brandon Huntley-Hatfield was also really important in the second half of this game; he and Fulky both played 22 minutes.

That same group was on the floor down the stretch against Michigan; Vescovi, Chandler, and Josiah all played 37-38 minutes in that one. So clearly, no matter the size of the rotation, the Vols knew who their very best guys were, and weren’t afraid to deviate to give them more action when it mattered most.

How does that look for the current squad?

2023 Rotation (to date)

• 32 minutes: Vescovi
• 26-29 minutes: Zeigler, Phillips, Key, Nkamhoua
• 21 minutes: Josiah
• 16-18 minutes: Aidoo, Mashack, Plavsic
• 8 minutes: Awaka

This ten-man group is obviously plus or minus Josiah’s minutes, who played 28 against Kentucky then 34 last night in Starkville. That’s a great sign.

Against Kentucky, the Vols closed with Vescovi, Zakai, Josiah, and Uros, who was having a career night. The Vols also used Olivier Nkamhoua and Tyreke Key down the stretch, creating the potential for small-ball lineups to again close it out for the Vols.

I’m curious to see if Julian Phillips can work his way into the final five, especially as we progress toward March. He only played 18 minutes against Kentucky, but went for 37 in Starkville and 26-29 in every other SEC game.

The Vols have clear flexibility for the second year in a row, and clearly enough to get a big win in Starkville when they were suddenly down to seven guys late. I’m curious to see how a closing time lineup might develop as we move into the middle of the SEC schedule. The Vols are at LSU on Saturday before hosting Georgia next Wednesday. The three game stretch that follows – Texas, at Florida, Auburn – should be the most difficult of the season so far. Will we see lineups begin to solidify? How will an already impressive rotation sharpen its skills against tougher competition?

Go Vols.

When people say a 12-team playoff will make regular season games less meaningful, Saturday’s loss to Kentucky is a great counter argument. It is, appropriately, a downer that continues to linger, with Tennessee missing a chance to get another one on their biggest rival with one of their greatest players going into the rafters. And absolutely, Tennessee can still earn a one seed and win the SEC and all that stuff. But this Monday morning has the right aftertaste of a hard loss. In sports, that’s not going anywhere.

Some of Saturday’s outcome is a credit to Kentucky following the upset playbook: 22-of-25 at the free throw line, 88%. And some of it is Tennessee doing things I’m not really concerned about them doing with frequency, like missing a bunch of layups.

In large part, Tennessee’s defense did the job we’re accustomed to seeing: 19 Kentucky turnovers, with 31.2% from the arc representing a really good day against the Vols. And of course, the Vols would’ve benefitted from hitting more shots; not just the bunnies, but a 3-of-21 performance from the arc. That stirs the ghosts of Michigan last year, when a hot-shooting Vol squad suddenly wasn’t for the wrong 40 minutes.

But when Tennessee’s offense falters, it normally gets a ton of second chances. And in UT’s three losses this season, I think it’s the biggest factor.

In 14 wins, Tennessee has gotten the rebound on at least a third of their misses. If the Vols just averaged their lowest performance in victory – 33.3% over USC – they would still be a Top 50 offensive rebounding team nationally. Tennessee actually averages 39% in offensive rebounding, fourth in the country. It peaked at 56.2% against South Carolina (so far), but the Vols were dominant here against good teams (43.8% vs Mississippi State, up next again Tuesday night) and great teams (46.9% against Kansas).

But in their three losses? The Vols got the rebound on just 25% of their misses against Colorado, 24.3% at Arizona, and a Tshiebwe-infused 11.8% against Kentucky.

Against the Cats last season, offensive rebounding was the least of our problems in Rupp Arena; the Vols ended with 33.3% but gave up 107 points to the hottest of hot shooting. In Knoxville, Kentucky found similar success: the Vols rebounded just 21.4% of their misses, but shot 8-of-17 (47.1%) from the arc. Same thing in the SEC Tournament: Vols grabbed just 22.9% of their misses, but shot 6-of-15 (40%) from three and held Kentucky to 2-of-20.

If Tennessee’s defense is the constant, the Vols will continue to run away from teams when they shoot it well. Making threes will always cover a multitude of sins. But if shots aren’t falling, this Tennessee team creates a significant portion of its offense from second chances. Against Tshiebwe, that’s always going to be a taller task, no pun intended. And there will be other Kentuckys and Arizonas of the world if the Vols advance deep into March. Arkansas is currently the best in the SEC on the defensive glass; we’ll see them on senior day.

Losing to Kentucky is no fun anytime, especially at home, especially this weekend. Overall, the Vols are still largely the team we hoped they’d be…but the offensive equation is a little more clear after this loss. If the Vols are shooting it well, they’ll be in good shape against any team because of their defense. If not, the Vols need the glass. And as they continue to play with lineups in swiss army fashion – shout out Uros Plavsic, clearly the sharpest blade on Saturday – I’m curious to see how they balance things to keep rebounding high on the priority list.

Go Vols.

One of the most important things for any team is believing you can win today.

Not tomorrow, though that’s a critical part of the same process. But there is a realized investment, at least from a fan perspective, in turning on the TV or scanning your ticket believing your team can win.

When you don’t, belief downgrades to curiosity. And if you don’t long enough, curiosity can be replaced with apathy. With nothingness.

Chris Lofton was a freshman in the 2004-05 season, when the Vols had missed the NCAA Tournament three years in a row. They brought almost everyone back from the previous year, 15-13 (7-9) with a first-round loss in the NIT.

Lofton was an immediate difference maker from the arc, shooting 46.5% while teams figured out who this freshman from Maysville, Kentucky was. He helped the Vols beat Florida in Gainesville in overtime on January 19, moving to 10-7 (3-2). But Tennessee lost seven of its next eight, removing the Vols from even the NIT picture.

It wasn’t an automatic decision to move on from Buzz Peterson at the time, which speaks to both the culture of college athletics 18 years ago and the culture of basketball at Tennessee. He was ultimately replaced with Bruce Pearl, who would go on to do all the Bruce Pearl things. But at first, I remember apathy more than anything else. When his first season began on November 18, 2005, a really difficult football season was winding to its close, ultimately finishing with a loss to Jay Cutler’s Vanderbilt. A season we entered with full-throated we-will-win-today belief endured a quarterback controversy and a 5-6 finish.

When football was hard in many seasons to come, there was almost always the opportunity to pivot to basketball: a meaningful opportunity to carry us through the winter and a belief that we could win in March, no matter what happened in the fall.

In November of 2005, that did not exist. And it has existed almost every season since then for 17 years.

And no player is more responsible for its existence at Tennessee than Chris Lofton.

Those Vols started 5-0 by way of ETSU, Louisiana Lafayette, Eastern Kentucky, Murray State, and Appalachian State. They went to #6 Texas on December 17. The fast start was appreciated, but there was little belief and I’m not even sure on curiosity.

And Tennessee won by 17 points.

To this day, it is the best example I know of in any Tennessee sport in my lifetime of how belief is always possible, its first steps always just one win away. It happened in large part because Chris Lofton had 21 points on 5-of-9 from the arc (also, shout out JaJuan Smith, who came off the bench with back-to-back threes to push a 10-point Tennessee lead to 16 early on, the definitive whoa moment of the game). Rick Barnes talked about this game this week, including the loss of Daniel Gibson to a concussion and Texas’ scramble to replace him.

Those Vols got your attention at Texas, and kept it through the start of SEC play at 11-3 (2-1). They welcomed #2 Florida on January 21, 2006. Everyone has their own opinions on what’s the loudest game in Thompson-Boling; my money stays with this one, for the sounds of sheer bewilderment that come when you believe you might win, and then realize as it’s happening in real time that it’s true. Lofton had 29 points and the steal that helped win it, firing back to Dane Bradshaw on the other end for a layup and the lead with 20 seconds to play. Two months earlier on the calendar, there was nothing. And now, there was everything.

There were, as I’m sure you know, many other famous Lofton moments to come. The shot over Kevin Durant, the win at Memphis, an SEC Championship…and even the shot against Winthrop at the end of this first season. A 34 points on 18 shots game against Memphis in Knoxville in December 2006, still the greatest individual basketball performance I’ve ever seen at UT. And the silent battle with cancer that speaks so much more about Lofton as a human being.

But on the court, to me some of the most memorable and most meaningful work Chris Lofton did came in this part, in Pearl’s first regular season and his second. The surprise in Austin, the validation against the Gators. And then the less exciting but just-as-important work that came next: making belief normal.

The Florida win became the first of eight in a row. Only one of the next seven became really famous: at Rupp Arena against Rajon Rondo’s Cats, Lofton hit 7-of-10 from the arc, 31 points, and the Vols got their first win in Lexington sine 1999.

But the other six wins in that streak happened in large part because Lofton willed them to: 33 points at Georgia the next night out after Rupp, 25 against Auburn after that. In those three games, Lofton shot 23-of-33 from the arc. That’s 69.6%. Seventeen years and Steph Curry and all that has changed in basketball later, I still struggle to make that compute.

That’s what it was like to watch Lofton: your eyes followed him on every offensive possession. No shot was too deep. And when he let it go, you believed.

Over the course of his career, joined by so many memorable teammates and a coach we certainly loved, you believed in not just Lofton, but Tennessee.

In football, we’re seeing it happen again now, in real time.

In basketball, we’ve never stopped.

The NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. The Vols made it just five times in the next 21 years, 23.8%. Since Chris Lofton and the Vols arrived on the national stage in 2006, the Vols have made 11 of the last 16 tournaments, 68.9%.

They made you believe we could win every night. That belief remained throughout Lofton’s entire career, accentuated by a trip atop the polls in 2008. It passed from Bruce Pearl to Cuonzo Martin, some of that era defined by a frustration to win the way we believed we could. And even at its lowest points since then, in the transition from Donnie Tyndall to Rick Barnes, the seeds of that belief were always there. And today, Tennessee basketball currently enjoys its highest KenPom rating in program history, and could go to number one tomorrow, fittingly, against Kentucky.

We believe we can win, against anyone.

No one played a bigger role in that belief than Chris Lofton. As much as any accomplishment, of which there are so many, that is a defining part of his legacy. And there is no better reason to be joining those in the rafters at Thompson-Boling.

Four years ago, Tennessee opened SEC play with a 96-50 beatdown of Georgia. Even with a team you already knew was really good by that point, it was an abnormally great performance. It remains the only 40+ point win over an SEC foe since 1979.

Those Dawgs were not great: 8-4 at the time, 11-21 at the end, 132nd in KenPom. From the Bruce Pearl era onward, Tennessee has seven wins of 30+ points against SEC foes. And, as you’d expect, five of them came against teams finishing outside the Top 100 in KenPom.

Ten years ago, Cuonzo Martin’s Vols caught Kentucky in their first game without Nerlens Noel, and laid down the law in an 88-58 shocker. That UK squad ended up in the NIT, as did those Vols. Kentucky was 18th in KenPom at tip-off, but finished 55th.

I’m not sure exactly where this Mississippi State squad will finish. They were as high as 22nd before what is now a three-game losing streak, leaving them currently 46th. And they were a nine seed in yesterday’s Bracket Matrix.

The story of Tennessee’s season won’t be defined by how good those Bulldogs are or aren’t, though we’ll see them again in Starkville in 12 days. But when considering a ceiling that already looked pretty good, this week’s performance – an 87-53 win – makes you start thinking about a skylight.

It wasn’t Josiah-Jordan James’ return by itself; hard to make it only about that when Tennessee leads 16-0 as he’s checking in. But his presence – eight points and four assists in 17 minutes – deepens the questions about what Tennessee’s best lineups even are. Having no definitive answer there means there could be even better basketball still out there somewhere. And the notion that Tennessee’s offense will automatically struggle has never made less sense than Tuesday night.

Better shooting may be harder to come by, considering it set the program record for effective field goal percentage in KenPom. It’s happened a couple of times in the post-2019 world for the Vols, when a squad with an outrageously good defense gets hot at the same time, and just annihilates anyone from Kansas two years ago to the team with the previously-sixth-best defense in the land this week. While the Vols are unlikely to be quite so hot again, the stuff that makes their best basketball – 28 assists on 36 made shots – can continue to hang around. And Josiah’s presence allows for small ball lineups we really haven’t been able to see.

Meanwhile, the last of the unbeatens is down in college basketball, and the race for the number one seeds is on:

• One Loss: Arizona, Houston, Kansas, Purdue (plus Kansas State and TCU)
• Two Losses: Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, UCLA, UConn (plus Iowa State, LSU, Miami, Missouri, Wisconsin)

Tennessee is the second number two seed in the Bracket Matrix, and the second overall seed in Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology. The Vols are at South Carolina on Saturday, then play Vanderbilt in Knoxville on Tuesday before Kentucky comes calling January 14. The regular season will hit its halfway point next week. And at the moment, there’s a small gap forming in KenPom between the top two teams – that’s Houston and Tennessee – and everyone else.

The Vols have looked good and very good. They’ve never looked better shooting the ball than they did against Mississippi State. But if a full roster has indeed presented itself once more, Tennessee has even more room to grow. So what already might be some of the best basketball we’ve seen in Knoxville is, in a very real sense, just getting started.

Go Vols.