Author Archives: Will Shelton

The week between Christmas and New Year’s has been light on anticipation in years past, but not now: while the football team prepares for the Orange Bowl on Friday, the basketball Vols tip-off SEC play at Ole Miss tonight (watch out, that’s a 5:00 PM eastern tip-off on the SEC Network). Rick Barnes’ squad continues to chase new ground for the program: the Vols are the second two-seed in this week’s Bracket Matrix, in hot pursuit of Tennessee’s first number one seed. And in KenPom, the Vols enter league play with what would be a program record in overall efficiency rating, and a historic number in defensive efficiency; Will Warren has been all over that pursuit this season.

When those numbers are that good, there’s a temptation to believe we should be feeling even better about this team. Tennessee lost a 50/50 game at Arizona, and has the heeded wake-up call vs Colorado on the resume. Their most impressive performance to date doesn’t count in the exhibition win over Gonzaga. But some of the hesitation may come from some of this team’s early struggle in doing that essential basketball truth of putting the ball through the net: Tennessee is 232nd in effective field goal percentage, and 186th from the arc at 33%. The latter would be Tennessee’s worst number from the arc since the 2020 season, when Jordan Bowden was routinely smothered and Santiago Vescovi was stepping off an airplane. The overall effective FG% number is so far the worst of this now six-year run of Barnes’ teams competing on a national level.

And yet, the Vols are as strong as they are both on the floor and in the advanced metrics for more than just “defense good.”

In particular, Tennessee leads the nation in three critical categories:

Opponent Three-Point Percentage

Teams shoot a robust 20.1% from the arc against the Vols. Houston is second in the country at 24.0%. That’s, uh, pretty good.

In a dozen games, two teams have cracked 30% from three against Tennessee. Two. Colorado hit 8-of-26 (30.8%). Southern Cal hit 5-of-15 (33.3%). The rest? Kansas shot 23.8%. Butler 21.7%. Maryland 8.3%. There’s a zero in front of that one. And Arizona was 5-of-24, 20.8%.

The additional note on all of these is that Tennessee has done most of this without Josiah-Jordan James. But when the Vols have Santiago Vescovi, Zakai Zeigler, and Jahmai Mashack at their disposal on the perimeter, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Teams can get hot, sure. This goes for the Vols too, who I’m sure have a suddenly-hot game in them when they’ll blow out a good team. But overall, the Vols are smothering teams from the arc at a rate not close to anything we’ve seen: in the last six years, no Tennessee defense has held opponents to less than 30% from the arc for an entire season.

What about on the offensive end?

Offensive Rebounding Percentage

Our old friend from the Cuonzo Martin days is back with a vengeance. In 2014, the Vols grabbed 39.7% of their misses with Jarnell Stokes and Jeronne Maymon on the floor, fifth best nationally. This Tennessee team is operating at the same level: 39.9%, best in the land. Tobe Awaka is dominating here as his minutes grow. But Julian Phillips has been consistently good here as well, fulfilling a backside rebounding role that Josiah was also good at. The best any Barnes team in the last six years has done is 33.4% in 2018, 41st nationally led by Kyle Alexander and Grant Williams. We probably don’t think of this team as post-heavy like those Cuonzo squads, but so far they’re every bit as good on the glass. And when the ball isn’t going through the net the first time as much as you’d like, offensive rebounding covers a multitude of sins.

Assist Rate

An old Rick Barnes friend, better than ever. The Vols are assisting on 69.7% of their made field goals, well ahead of last year’s 63%, UT’s highest of this era. This continues a trend of an offense based less around individuals winning one-on-one and more around ball movement and shot selection. Tennessee couldn’t replace Kennedy Chandler here, but they have so far re-created him: Vescovi and Zeigler, again, are really good.

On the offense-first 2019 squad, Grant Williams averaged 18.8 points per game, Admiral Schofield 16.5. Other than those two, who’s the last Tennessee player to average more than 14 points per game?

It’s Kevin Punter, 22.2 in Barnes’ first year. That’s seven basketball teams ago.

The current squad appears unlikely to break that streak, with Olivier Nkamhoua and Santiago Vescovi both at 11.8 points per game entering league play. But the Vols have ranked no worse than 30th nationally in each of the last six seasons in assist rate, and are doing it better than ever right now.

All of this will get tested in the fires of SEC play + Texas over the next 19 games, starting tonight in Oxford. If more shots fall for this offense, the Vols will solidify their argument as one of the very best teams in the nation. But even if they don’t, if this team continues to excel at defending the three, sharing the ball, and giving themselves second chances? Tennessee will continue to have a chance to beat anybody, anywhere.

Go Vols.

Tennessee’s 75-70 loss at Arizona capped a terrific day of college basketball, one that will set the landscape as the sport moves to conference play. In the power six conferences, only three teams remain unbeaten: Purdue, UConn, and the surprising year one surge from Chris Jans and Mississippi State. The Bulldogs survived 68-66 against Nicholls State, joining their close wins over Marquette and Utah to build to 11-0. We’ll learn much more there soon: after facing Drake tomorrow, Mississippi State opens SEC play with Alabama and a trip to Knoxville.

In the last five non-covid-affected NCAA Tournaments (2016-2019, 2022), one seeds average 4.55 losses on Selection Sunday, two seeds 6.25 losses. The race to the top of the bracket sometimes comes down to how little you’ve lost. In that regard, UConn appears to have the best combination of talent + league: the Huskies are the only Big East team currently in the KenPom Top 25, but have five wins over the KenPom Top 50 including a 15-point victory over Alabama. Gonzaga appears less likely to be in the one seed chase this year, but Houston is 11-1 and has no remaining games over KenPom Top 25 foes in the American (Memphis is 26th).

Beyond those two, the plot thickens.

KenPom projects the three best leagues to be the Big 12, Big Ten, and SEC. The latter two have issues with the basement (Minnesota 178th KenPom, South Carolina 195th), but each boast five teams in the KenPom Top 25. The Big 12 is ridiculous top-to-bottom, with four teams in the KenPom Top 25 but almost the entire league in the Top 50 (Kansas State is currently 52nd). Any team who separates from those packs is likely staring a one seed square in the face, but chaos seems far more likely. That could benefit the best teams in weaker leagues: Virginia in the ACC, UCLA or Arizona in the Pac 12.

We’ve combined KenPom’s regular season projected records with Bart Torvik’s TourneyCast probability for one seeds. At the outset of conference play, the race for the top of the bracket looks something like this:

KenPom Projected Losses & Torvik TourneyCast 1 Seed Probability

The projected losses, of course, is entering conference tournament play. So they’re all plus-one if that squad doesn’t win during championship week.

Despite the loss to Arizona, Tennessee currently has the fifth-best odds to earn a one seed at Torvik, which would make them first on the two line if all this held true. I’m uncertain how much of these projections are reliant on the health of Josiah-Jordan James, who continues to be game-to-game. All of these teams are worth keeping an eye on, especially in what still appears to be a more wide-open year without clear favorites.

Who’s the best team Tennessee will play this year?

If the answer ended up being Kansas, we’d certainly take it. The Jayhawks rebounded from their loss to the Big Orange in Atlantis by dropping bombs on Seton Hall (91-65) and our previously-unbeaten brethren from Missouri, in CoMo, 95-67. I know the best team we’ll play this year probably isn’t Maryland, in part because the Terps responded to losing to us in the other direction. UCLA blasted them 87-60, also on their home floor.

In KenPom, there’s an upper crust emerging: UConn is undefeated and first, Houston lost only to Bama (also at home) and is second, and the Vols are third. The aforementioned Bruins are next, around 1.5 points behind the Vols on a neutral floor. The numbers take a small dip there, but next is Purdue, also undefeated and the current top choice in the Bracket Matrix. Its most recent update from December 14 is less kind to UCLA as a four seed, but has Purdue, UConn, Virginia, Houston, Kansas, and Tennessee as the top six teams in the nation, all tightly packed with seed averages of 1.something.

It’s early. But things will shift quickly: conference play begins before the Orange Bowl, and the SEC is as strong as ever at the top. The league has three teams in the KenPom Top 10 and Arkansas at 14th, plus Auburn and still-unbeaten Mississippi State in the Top 25. There’s a gap from there, but that’s a good group of six. Tennessee picks up both Auburn and Mississippi State home-and-home this year. But Alabama and Arkansas both come to Thompson-Boling.

Any conversation as to who our toughest opponent might be will always include Kentucky; it’s their burden to be uncertain about this year’s team while simultaneously being sixth in KenPom. Texas is seventh in KenPom, and also comes to Knoxville.

There are lots of options; it’s in Rick Barnes’ nature to ensure the schedule works that way. We’ll probably spend all year trying to figure out our toughest opponent.

But our toughest single contest, I’d imagine, will be one of two things: Rupp Arena, as usual.

And tomorrow night.

The NCAA Tournament is a neutral site affair. And we learned last year that no matter how bad you may look in a hostile environment – Vols return to Rupp on February 18 – it’s not the best indicator of your chances in March.

Arizona learned this early in our game last year, with Tennessee blitzing them to a 16-2 lead. The Wildcats came all the way back to tie it, but John Fulkerson had his moment with 24 points and 10 rebounds, and the Vols won 77-73. The Wildcats would still go to Selection Sunday at 31-3.

Saturday night at a ludicrous 10:30 PM eastern time, the Vols make the return trip. It’s an amazing number one offense vs number one defense game, one you wish would take place in front of more eyeballs. But there will be plenty of them in Tucson, I’m sure.

The winner is guaranteed little in the moment, but can continue to build a strong resume in what appears to be a crowded field, give or take your current level of belief in UConn or Purdue. From a regular season/advanced stats perspective, we’ve grown used to seeing one team at the top for several years now. I’m not sure any compare to Kentucky’s 2015 juggernaut, but those Wildcats opened the door for a kind of “this-is-clearly-the-best-team” run. Villanova earned that place in 2016 and 2018. But most of the other seasons, it was Gonzaga: KenPom champs and national runners-up in 2017, the only team within a hair of the 2019 champs from Virginia in efficiency, undefeated all the way to the title game in 2021, and back atop that list last season before falling to Arkansas in the Sweet 16.

Gonzaga did much of that with Tommy Lloyd, who took the Arizona job last season. The Bulldogs are not that team this year: Texas and Purdue beat them by 37 combined points. The Vols, you’ll recall, beat them by a similar margin in a televised exhibition. And relative to talent, Rick Barnes’ teams have always played well against Gonzaga, and did so again with Lloyd’s team last year.

With Gonzaga being less Gonzaga-like, the regular season conversation feels much more open. And when the Top 5 teams in KenPom are UConn, Houston, Tennessee, UCLA, and Purdue? It feels w-i-d-e open.

Part of that becomes the chase for the four number one seeds. On Selection Sunday in the last five non-covid-affected NCAA Tournaments, the one seeds averaged 4.55 losses on Selection Sunday. The two seeds averaged 6.25 losses. Maybe the wide open nature of the season means more losses for everyone. But those top teams are getting ready to go their separate ways to conference play. Will the Vols get more beat up than UConn or Virginia? How will Purdue fare in an equally-tough Big Ten?

So this one at Arizona, aside from its own incredible offense/defense merits, could be the small difference between a one and a two seed at the end. Sometimes, it’s just about who has fewer losses. And the winner has a great opportunity to put themselves a step ahead here.

It may not get any tougher this year than Tucson. But the NCAA Tournament won’t be played on anyone’s home floor. For a Tennessee team still trying to ascertain its own health and lineups, while still playing the nation’s best defense? It’s an incredible opportunity in what is shaping up to be a fun, wide open year to get one step closer to the top of the bracket.

Go Vols.

The web browser marks the changing seasons: my most-visited sites were once SP+ and SportSource Analytics, and most recently every bowl projection I can find, to try to understand this Rose Bowl madness. But already, winter’s champions emerge once more: KenPom, the Bracket Matrix, and Bart Torvik.

In KenPom, the Vols are third overall this morning, still boasting what would finish as their highest rating in program history. The Bracket Matrix still has their preseason projections up, reflecting a pre-Colorado, pre-Atlantis world. In it, the Vols were the first #3 seed. That number is in the neighborhood of the best of what we’ve seen from Rick Barnes’ teams at UT, and the best in program history:

• #2 Seeds: 2006, 2008, 2019
• #3 Seeds: 2018, 2022

My favorite feature at Torvik’s site is the T-Ranketology, a predictive bracketology, which shows you after any given result how the field of 64 might end up looking. Like anything else, we wouldn’t turn to it this time of year expecting full-on accuracy in March.

But as the calendar turned to December this week, note the team at the top:

We noted Tennessee’s ascension from Atlantis to Atlantis, where the Vols went to the Bahamas five years ago and scored a huge overtime win against #18 Purdue to put themselves in the conversation, and five years later won the whole thing by smothering the defending national champs. And it’s the conversation that remains football’s greatest accomplishment this season, the Vols appearing in every mock 12-team bracket you’ll find this week.

Believing your team can win championships is the goal. Five years ago, when the Vols went to the Bahamas, basketball hadn’t even made the NIT in three years. Baseball hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament in 12 years, and Tony Vitello was preparing for year one. And football was finishing up the first and only 4-8 season in program history.

In 2022, the baseball team was number one in the country for most of the year. Football was number one in the initial college football playoff rankings. And it’s early, but basketball is building a resume that could earn the program’s first ever number one seed.

It’s early. And, truth be told, it’s still early in the stories of Tony Vitello and Josh Heupel at Tennessee too. What Rick Barnes and basketball have built is the hope of sustainability: you’re not just good because Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield, and all those guys are on your team for a couple years. Those teams do their part, earn their place on the banners, and pass the chase on to the next group, ready to pursue anew.

In 2022, the three programs with the most eyeballs in the men’s athletic department can put a super regional, an SEC Tournament title, and a New Year’s Six bowl on the board. Baseball and football also reached the top of the mountain in the regular season; basketball could be building that for Selection Sunday.

Hey, I’m frustrated with the bowl selection process too. But the most important work this football team could do is already secure. Basketball, alongside them, can give itself the opportunity to do something in the bracket the program has never done before.

And in all three sports, from where we were five years ago at Thanksgiving, to where we are in this first month of December?

Give thanks. Go Vols.

Over at Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology, the Vols would be well acquainted with their current neighbors on the one line:

• Texas, first in KenPom and second in defensive efficiency, comes to Thompson-Boling Arena on January 28
• Tennessee, third in KenPom and first in defensive efficiency
• Arizona, ninth in KenPom and third in offensive efficiency, hosts Tennessee on December 17
• Houston currently rounds out this group, second in KenPom and third in defensive efficiency

We’re a long way from March. But we miss no opportunities to celebrate. So on this Thanksgiving Weekend…how bout them Vols.

If you watched it, it wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing performance. Tennessee turned it over 24 times, 17 in the first half. Recall last season, when UT’s worst performances could be directly tied to this number: 18 turnovers in the loss to Villanova, 18 in an overtime squeaker against Ole Miss, 20 in the blowout at Rupp Arena.

Twenty-four last night, seventeen in the first half…and the Vols led by eight at the break. And won by 14. Against the number three defending national champions.

Kansas gave it away 16 times, 11 credited to Tennessee steals. Four of those belonged to Zakai Zeigler. And the Vols also did good things from the arc when they weren’t giving it away: 12-of-27 (44.4%) from the arc, including 3-of-5 from Zeigler and a shooters shoot 5-of-14 from Santiago Vescovi.

Two years ago, Tennessee blew out Kansas in Knoxville in a “what if we get hot” game: 8-of-13 from the arc, 16-of-17 at the line, 52.8% from the floor overall. It was a good look at the ceiling, but a less predictable outcome from game-to-game. Those Keon Johnson/Jaden Springer Vols were 12-3 after that win, won at Rupp the following weekend, and were 14-4 on February 10. But they went 4-5 in their final nine games, including two without John Fulkerson and a defense more reliant on one player, Yves Pons, who sat much of the NCAA Tournament loss to Oregon State in foul trouble.

This Tennessee team played their way through Atlantis without Josiah-Jordan James, sitting with knee soreness. They finished the Kansas performance at 41.5% from the floor and, again, the 24 turnovers.

But what can show up much more predictably is defense. And we’ve seen some really good versions of that over the years, from last year to the 2018 team, all the way back through Cuonzo. Bruce Pearl’s best defensive team in 2010 is the one that went the farthest in the NCAA Tournament.

It’s early. But this team is chasing new territory on multiple fronts:

And, of course, the elusive one seed in an NCAA Tournament featuring regionals in Louisville or three plane tickets to Kansas City, New York, or Las Vegas.

The whole goal of the regular season is to get as far up the bracket as possible, and to be playing your best basketball when it arrives. Tennessee will once again have the strength of schedule component well in hand: three tune-ups in Knoxville are next, then Maryland, then Arizona.

We’ll see about Josiah, we’ll see about the three-point shooting. In Atlantis, a surprising offensive rebounding surge appeared: 15 against Kansas on 31 misses, otherwise known as almost half of them. If that continues, we could see a team that looks a lot like that 2014 Cuonzo squad with Jarnell Stokes, one that can excel both defensively and on the offensive glass. That brand of basketball can cover a multitude of sins.

And there ain’t many of those on this team to begin with. Right now, this team has a higher KenPom rating than any Tennessee squad at the end of the season.

Five years ago, Tennessee went to Atlantis and entered the national conversation with a crucial program win over #18 Purdue. Five years later, the Vols took home the conch shell with a dominant win over #3 Kansas. It is the eighth Top 5 win for Rick Barnes at Tennessee:

• 2017: Tennessee 82 #4 Kentucky 80 (Knoxville)
• 2019: #7 Tennessee 76 #1 Gonzaga 73 (Phoenix)
• 2019: #7 Tennessee 71 #4 Kentucky 52 (Knoxville)
• 2019: #8 Tennessee 82 #4 Kentucky 78 (SEC Tournament)
• 2022: #16 Tennessee 76 #4 Kentucky 63 (Knoxville)
• 2022: #17 Tennessee 67 #3 Auburn 62 (Knoxville)
• 2022: #9 Tennessee 69 #5 Kentucky 62 (SEC Tournament)
• 2023: #22 Tennessee 64 #3 Kansas 50 (Atlantis)

And if this team continues to develop, more will be on the way.

Go Vols.