Worth reading 1.14.19: 2018 football’s encouraging leap in S&P+

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it this, from Will:

Other Vols stuff worth reading today

  1. Rucker: Special Vols fight back, outlast feisty Florida, via 247Sports
  2. Williams one step ahead of Florida for late-game kill shot, via 247Sports
  3. What Rick Barnes said after No. 3 Vols beat Florida, via 247Sports
  4. Jordan Bowden stays hot with 12 straight points at Florida, via 247Sports
  5. No. 3 Tennessee Grabs 78-67 Road Win over Florida – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports
  6. Why Jeremy Pruitt hired Jim Chaney, via VolQuest
  7. Vols waiting on NFL Draft decision from Jauan Jennings, via 247Sports
  8. FL Vols: How former Tennessee stars fared in Divisional Round, via 247Sports
  9. No. 13 Lady Vols Drop Close One At UGA, 66-62 – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports

Behind the paywalls

  • MUST READ: Rocky Top Fat Camp: Inside the program that has helped shape…, via The Athletic
  • Projecting the Tennessee Vols’ 2019 offensive depth chart, via The Athletic
  • Tennessee visit ‘felt confirming’ to elite LB To’oto’o, via 247Sports
  • Tennessee’s 10 most wanted, via 247Sports

From the Archives

Where 2018 Ranks in the Last 50 Years of Tennessee Football

We use S&P+ during football season (and KenPom for basketball) a lot on our site. Part of it comes from the 10+ years we spent at SB Nation, where Bill Connelly continues to do great work with advanced statistics. And specific to Tennessee, the longer the Vols struggle, the more I believe it’s important to find good ways to distinguish what’s happening year to year.

S&P+ isn’t the best way to rank teams; I still work for the head-to-head police, still believe Penn State should’ve been in over Ohio State two years ago, etc. But S&P+ is one of the best ways to rate teams. It doesn’t judge wins and losses, but places a value on every play, adjusted for each opponent. You can read all about what goes into it here, but in general it includes five factors:

  • Success Rate (staying on schedule with five yards on first down, 70% of what’s left on second down, and converting third/fourth downs).
  • Points Per Play
  • + Scoring Opportunities (what you did inside the 40), Field Position, and Turnover Margin

Not only does S&P+ assign value to every snap, it gives a percentile performance for each game and, ultimately, the season. It’s a good way to distinguish between seasons that finish with similar records, and track a coach and program over time.

Football Outsiders has S&P+ data going back to 2005, including offensive and defensive unit rankings. But a couple off-seasons ago, Bill Connelly published an estimated S&P+ rating for teams as far back as 1970 (all of those links can be found here from Football Study Hall).

We pointed out at the time how S&P+ didn’t rate 1998 as Tennessee’s best team of the 90’s, but instead leaned toward Heath Shuler’s 1993 squad. The ’98 Vols won five one-possession games, plus a fourth quarter comeback in the SEC Championship Game. The ’93 Vols lost to Florida by seven and tied Alabama before ultimately stumbling in the Citrus Bowl against Penn State. But they also decimated everyone else, including a 32-point win over #22 Georgia and 35 points over #13 Louisville. Shuler finished second in the Heisman balloting and the team set a school record for points per game that still stands.

Again, it’s not the best way to rank seasons – ’93 in particular struggles in that department because it lacks a signature win – but it is a good way to ask yourself, “Who would we least like to face?” And the 50 years (okay, 49) of estimated percentile performance give us a ton of context for where Tennessee was, is, and could go.

So, using the data from Football Study Hall, here’s every Tennessee team since 1970 in S&P+, from best to worst:

TeamS&P+ PercentileRecord
197097.9411-1
199397.209-2-1
199796.4811-2
200196.4811-2
199996.009-3
199895.8713-0
197295.8210-2
198595.469-1-2
199594.7111-1
200793.3010-4
200692.809-4
199092.159-2-2
198991.8111-1
200991.207-6
199290.809-3
199689.8910-2
197489.477-3-2
199487.968-4
199187.909-3
197187.2810-2
198487.267-4-1
200483.5610-3
200382.7410-3
201582.509-4
197982.487-5
201481.407-6
200581.105-6
198780.4810-2-1
198380.079-3
201677.609-4
200075.718-4
198075.445-6
201273.605-7
201173.205-7
197572.887-5
200271.068-5
201369.805-7
200868.805-7
197362.758-4
198659.517-5
197659.286-5
197756.324-7
198255.466-5-1
197855.045-5-1
201055.006-7
198847.165-6
201839.005-7
198135.638-4
201717.404-8

The first data point is the highest: the 1970 Vols lost to #17 Auburn in week two, but didn’t fall again. They beat #13 Georgia Tech 17-6, then beat Alabama 24-0 and Florida 38-7 in consecutive weeks. LSU lost a pair of non-conference games in 1970 but went undefeated in the SEC; as the Vols and Tigers did not meet, #5 LSU won the SEC and got a shot at #3 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, with an outside chance at the national championship. The #4 Vols went to the Sugar Bowl and beat #11 Air Force 34-13. The Cornhuskers beat LSU to claim the national championship when #1 Texas and #2 Ohio State both lost their bowl games; had the Vols played Nebraska instead they too would’ve been playing for the title.

Shuler’s ’93 Vols are second on the list, meaning the two highest-rated teams of the last 50 years both had first-year coaches in Bill Battle and Phillip Fulmer. From there, it’s the list you expect: the most memorable seasons from the decade of dominance, Condredge Holloway’s 1972 Vols, and the 1985 Sugar Vols.

Here’s what it looks like over time:

And here’s the Google Sheet where you can interact with the data.

So…what can we learn here?

The Last Two Years Really Have Been Rock Bottom

In S&P+, the 2017 season is the worst of the last 50 years by a significant margin. The Vols went 4-8, but it was more than that. The Vols were statistically dominated in the win over Georgia Tech. And UT was both non-competitive in five blowout losses, and failed to measure up play-for-play in close losses to Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky. The S&P+ win expectancy in those three games: 19%, 23%, and 33%, plus just 23% against Georgia Tech.

Only 1981 kept 2018 from making it back-to-back years at the bottom of S&P+. The ’81 Vols are an interesting example of how S&P+ works: Tennessee went 8-4, but the four losses were by 44 to Georgia, 36 to USC, 19 to Alabama, and 11 to Kentucky. Meanwhile the Vols beat Auburn and Georgia Tech by identical 10-7 scores, beat Vanderbilt by four, and survived Wichita State 24-21. Play-for-play, the ’81 Vols were really bad…but they found a way to win every close game. And that team, and the ones to follow, help teach us a good lesson.

The Early 80’s as a Guide?

The records didn’t show straight-line improvement for Johnny Majors from 1981-84: 8-4, 6-5-1, 9-3, 7-4-1. But in S&P+, the Vols were getting stronger every year, laying the groundwork for the SEC title in 1985.

The 2018 Vols are third-worst in S&P+ in the last 50 years…but they were significantly better than their predecessors. It’s easy to make things pass/fail: if the Vols had beaten South Carolina, Missouri, or Vanderbilt to get bowl eligible at 6-6, it would’ve seemed a lot easier to praise Jeremy Pruitt for his year one work. But play-for-play, Tennessee made progress.

You always start with wins and losses, and in the end, you circle back there. But in between, it’s worth valuing every play. And while there’s a long way to go back to the top, Tennessee took a solid first step away from the bottom in 2018.

The Ups and Downs of Any Program

S&P+ puts 2006 and 2007 in a different light too. After an abundance of close wins in 2003 and 2004 (and close losses in 2005), the Vols were far closer to their 90’s neighbors in 2006: one-point loss to the eventual champs, four-point loss to Top 10 LSU, and significant blowouts of Cal and Georgia. The Vols got blown out three times in 2007, but the weight of the ongoing Fulmer conversation probably made us undervalue Tennessee blowing out Georgia and Arkansas in return.

2008 was still the worst year of the Fulmer era; the last ten years may have changed your mind, but in the moment there were certainly reasonable arguments for moving on in wins and losses. But play-for-play, the Vols weren’t far away in the two years before Fulmer was out, and nearly returned to the same form with Fulmer’s players in Lane Kiffin’s one and only year.

Since then, things have trended downhill in a hurry. Even what some may think of as the good Butch Jones years – 2014-2016 – were, both play-for-play and in the end result, several steps behind Tennessee’s best days.

I’m not sure it’s realistic to make the 90’s the definition of success; in the last 50 years that’s the ceiling, but not always where we live. Since 1970 the Vols are better understood as a program capable of hitting those high notes – and its current athletic director hired a coach with that possibility in mind – but also one that has its ups and downs, and is currently in the middle of a historic down. Progress, for Fulmer and Pruitt, looks first like getting the Vols above the thresholds Dooley and Butch reached but could not surpass. At this point, in these ratings, it’s still a steeper climb than either of them faced. But looking for said progress is part of the fun. It’ll always be easier when the Vols are winning close games instead of losing them. But so far for Jeremy Pruitt, progress is there.

Any program is a roller coaster over the course of 50 years. We come back every fall because we love the ride itself, not just the wins. History suggests we’ve never been as low as in the last two years…but history also shows the heights this program can attain. And we’re in the middle of a basketball season showing us you can always go higher.

For the Vols, and for Pruitt, right now it’s simply about going forward.

Tennessee 78 Florida 67: Put Your Hands Together

Surprise blowouts are delightful, but perhaps we forgot how much fun one of these can be too.

Florida was 22nd in overall KenPom and fifth in defensive efficiency. The Vols were favored by only a deuce. And to the finish, the Gators lived up to all of that, even if differently than we thought.

The Gators take a lot of threes…but 22 of them in the first half compared to seven attempts from inside the arc? Not sure I’ve seen that ratio against the Vols before. But…it worked. Florida splashed enough of them for a 38-35 halftime advantage, due in large part to their ability to defend well without fouling. Tennessee had just three tries at the free throw line in the first half, and still finished -7 in attempts to the Gators for the game.

Florida was good defensively…but in the end, just not quite good enough.

Tennessee answered a KeVauhgn Allen three to open the second half with an 8-0 run to take the lead. The Vols pushed the lead to five a couple of times around the ten minute mark, but Florida didn’t fold. With eight minutes to play, a wild sequence saw eight consecutive possessions end with points: each time Florida took the lead first, then the Vols immediately tied it up. And by “the Vols”, I mean Jordan Bowden: 12 straight Tennessee points, capped off with a three, a steal, and a slam to give Tennessee the lead.

The Vols held the lead into the final minute, up two. Points came easiest on this night for Grant Williams, who followed up a 23-point performance against Florida last year with 20 tonight. He got the ball near the top of the key, took a step or two…and found Admiral Schofield in the corner. And if you’re looking for a big shot this year, look no further: a three with three on the shot clock put the Vols up five with 45 seconds to play. A couple free throws and a couple steal-and-scores from there, and we got this:

Again, Florida was good. But “good” simply isn’t enough to beat Tennessee right now.

I feel like we’ve been on the other side of this game plenty of times against a top-five Kentucky or Florida squad: played hard, played well, had our chances, couldn’t finish. If you like that comparison, consider this: the Vols go to +28.60 in KenPom, fourth nationally and, insanely, second nationally in offense. Only two of John Calipari’s Kentucky teams finished a year better than +28.60. One won the title with Anthony Davis, the other was undefeated until it lost in the Final Four. Only two of Billy Donovan’s Florida teams finished a year better than that (KenPom goes back to 2002). One won the title in 2007, the other made the Elite Eight in 2013.

There’s a ton of basketball left to play, and plenty of chances for the Vols to go up or down. But right now, the Vols are playing among or above elite company in both Tennessee and recent SEC history.

A week on the road leads to a week at home: Arkansas on Tuesday, Alabama on Saturday. Kermit Davis and Ole Miss inserting themselves into the SEC title race has done nothing to change the back-ended nature of Tennessee’s schedule: the Vols will finish the season with at LSU, at Ole Miss, vs Kentucky, vs Mississippi State, at Auburn. We get the Cats twice, of course, but otherwise those are the only meetings on the calendar with the rest of that list. Florida returns to Knoxville on February 9.

Long way to go. But so far, lots of fun along the way.

Go Vols.

Worth reading 1/11/19: The return of Lamonte Turner

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it this, from 247Sports’ Wes Rucker:

Other Vols stuff worth reading today

  1. Tennessee at Florida Preview, via Gameday on Rocky Top
  2. Everything Rick Barnes said before No. 3 Vols travel to Florida, via 247Sports
  3. Vols Announce Basketball Series with Wisconsin – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports
  4. Schofield, Williams Named to Wooden Award Midseason Watch List – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports
  5. Tennessee 39th in Directors’ Cup final fall standings, via 247Sports
  6. No. 13 Tennessee Falls To No. 16 Kentucky, 73-71 – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports
  7. UT Hoops Coaches’ Shows Air Saturday – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports

Behind the paywalls

Tennessee at Florida Preview

Everyone is on the books now in SEC action, and most of the league has played twice. The other teams we believed to be contenders for the SEC Championship – Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, and Mississippi State, all Top 25 in KenPom – have already lost once. Tennessee beat Georgia by 46, then won at Missouri by 24. The Vols are now projected to win the SEC at 14-4 in KenPom. But more than that, the second place team(s) are projected to finish 11-7.

Tennessee, meanwhile, is now fifth nationally in KenPom with a rating of +26.87 (points better than the average team on a neutral floor in 100 possessions). It’s easily the program’s best rating in the 18-year KenPom history. I’ll leave the Ernie & Bernie comparisons to those old enough to have seen both, but otherwise, right now you’ve got statistical backup for, “This is the best Tennessee team I’ve ever seen.”

With that comes an exciting curiosity: now it’s not just if the Vols will win, but can they ascend the blowout ladder? Rebuilding team with a first-year coach, check. Bubble team on the road, check.

What about the Gators? KenPom still only projects the Vols as a two-point favorite in Gainesville, so perhaps we shouldn’t get too greedy. But I’m also not sure this team is done teaching us what greedy actually looks like just yet.

Last Year: After a 9-1 stretch book-ended with victories over Kentucky, the Vols lost two of their next three to fall out of the number one seed conversation. Florida was the return to form: a gritty 62-57 win in Knoxville, which helped us simplify Tennessee’s best basketball to a degree.

This was the game that made us start conversations with, “Does this team have anyone who can guard Grant Williams?” The soon-to-be SEC Player of the Year had 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 7-of-8 at the line. A Florida team that found plenty of success leaning on guards Chris Chiozza and KeVaughn Allen had no answer for Williams.

I’m not sure how much that’s changed. The Gators still like putting four guys at 6’5″ and under on the floor with a single big, most often 6’9″ senior Kevarrius Hayes. He’s a good shot-blocker, but he and 6’8″ junior Keith Stone are really the only shot blockers on this team. The Vols remain first in the nation in fewest shots blocked.

Where Florida does make its living is turnovers. The Gators are fifth nationally in defensive efficiency, the Vols fourth in offensive efficiency, which should make this really fun to watch…if Florida has an answer for Williams. Forcing turnovers on 24.6% of opponent possessions (seventh nationally) is a good start. The Gators are 7-2 when forcing 15+ turnovers, 2-3 when they don’t hit that mark.

KeVauhgn Allen is still around, but a pair of freshmen guards – Noah Locke and Andrew Nembhard – are a big part of what they like to do as well. Nembhard is 28th nationally in assist rate, averaging 5.7 per game. Locke is a volume shooter, hitting 42.4% from the arc so far this year.

It’s thankfully the first of two with the Gators this year, who return to Knoxville on February 9 in an already sold out Thompson-Boling. This one will get some national eyeballs – 6:00 PM ET Saturday, ESPN – and represents another big chance for Tennessee to separate themselves from the SEC contenders. We’ll see how much additional separation the Vols can create in Gainesville.

Worth reading 1/10/19: If Jim Chaney can do that with Jonathan Crompton . . .

If you read only one thing about the Vols today . . .

. . . make it this, from VolQuest:

Other Vols stuff worth reading today

  1. Jeremy Pruitt explains why he hired Jim Chaney as Vols’ OC, via 247Sports
  2. Pruitt says there was ‘no need to rush’ Vols’ OC search, via 247Sports
  3. Tennessee’s ‘capabilities,’ direction helped land Chaney, via 247Sports
  4. Kiffin: Jim Chaney is “grand slam” hire for Tennessee, via 247Sports
  5. Paul Finebaum reacts to Tennessee’s hiring of Jim Chaney, via 247Sports
  6. Jim Chaney’s Memorandum of Understanding, via UTSports
  7. Tennessee 92 Vanderbilt 84: Yep, we can win this way too., via Gameday on Rocky Top
  8. Jordan Bowden finding different ways to score, lead Vols, via 247Sports
  9. What Tennessee is getting by swiping Jim Chaney from Georgia…, via The Athletic
  10. Who is this Kyle Alexander and where did he come from?, via 247Sports
  11. Rucker: Tennessee sending statement to SEC, via 247Sports
  12. Reaction: Former Vols hail Tennessee’s hire of Jim Chaney, via 247Sports
  13. Media reaction to Jim Chaney returning to Tennessee, via 247Sports
  14. Bryce Thompson Collects FWAA Freshman All-America Honors – University of Tennessee Athletics, via UTSports
  15. Odds released on Jalen Hurts’ transfer destination, via 247Sports
  16. The process of Alabama falling apart, via SB Nation

Behind the paywalls

6 reasons Vols fans should be excited about the Jim Chaney hire

247Sports’ Patrick Brown broke the news last night that Tennessee has hired Jim Chaney as its new offensive coordinator. The school just made the news official.

After a long, drawn-out process that rivaled last year’s search for a new head coach in time if not in drama, it appears that Tennessee has once again ended up better off for having taken its time. Here are a few reasons why this hire is an absolute homerun for the Big Orange.

Offensive Productivity

This is the one you’ll read about the most today, so I won’t spend much time on it. But Chaney knows what to do with great players, and he’s able to develop good players into great ones. Sure, the Georgia Bulldogs are stocked with elite talent, but as Tennessee fans can attest, just having highly-recruited players running around out there doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to produce up to their potential.

That shouldn’t be a problem with Chaney.

Chaney’s not only done well with a roster full of blue-chippers at Georgia, he also managed to provide one of the bright spots for a Tennessee program woefully lacking them over the past decade. As OC for the Vols in 2012 — a season otherwise so bad it got Derek Dooley fired — Chaney guided Tyler Bray, Cordarrelle Patterson, Justin Hunter, and three future NFL offensive linemen to a prolific 36 points per game. Chaney was never the problem during Dooley’s time on Rocky Top, and his productivity and offensive prowess will be an asset to Jeremy Pruitt and the Tennessee program.

A lateral move to division rival

We’ve described rebuilding in the SEC as rebuilding during the hurricane before, and, well, it’s apt. SEC coaches don’t have the luxury of waiting for sunny skies to get to work.

They’re building with the left hand and battling with the right.

It’s an especially difficult task for anyone at the helm of the Tennessee program during Alabama’s reign of terror due to the Vols’ annual rivalry with the Tide, and Georgia getting nearly as good is terrible news for a program trying to re-make something nearly from scratch.

So anything that both makes Tennessee better and weakens an annual rival is a good thing. Regardless of Georgia fans complaining about Chaney when they happen to lose to other good teams, Chaney was the guy the coaching staff wanted, and now he’s not only gone, he’s defected to Rocky Top. He’s switched sides in the middle of the battle.

It’s not just the re-balancing of power, either. It’s also the regional and national perception. The Bulldogs have had a tough month. They lost a lead over Alabama in the SEC Championship and eventually lost the game. They were left out of the playoff, and then they lost their heart and their bowl game. It’s a different sport, but because things tend to run together in college sports, I’ll also throw in that the Tennessee hoops team just absolutely thumped Georgia. Now Chaney throws in with the Vols.

Fun. I like it. I also like the whispers that some NFL teams might be considering Kirby Smart as a head coach. Nick Saban may have been-there-done-that, but Smart hasn’t. He should try it. Really. Totally unbiased opinion here.

Maybe Georgia will be fine. But it sure looked like Alabama missed Jeremy Pruitt against Clemson Monday night, didn’t it?

Fit

Jeremy Pruitt is old school. You can tell by looking at him, watching him work, and by analyzing the teams that he’s coached. So it was a bit strange to hear some of the names bandied about during the offensive coordinator search, names like Kendal Briles and Mike Yurcich. Fair or not, guys like that, whose resumes are built on spread concepts and tempo, feel like shiny new objects.

Jim Chaney is not that. Like Pruitt, he’s old school. He is flexible enough to be able to incorporate new wrinkles that work, but at heart, he’s exactly what Pruitt expects in an offensive mind.

Upgrade in experience

I refrained from writing this all last preseason and throughout the entire fall, but when Pruitt’s staff was announced, one of my biggest fears stemmed from the fact that so many of them were getting promotions into positions for which they were unproven. Pruitt himself was stepping up from coordinator to head coach, and his coordinators were primarily former position coaches. Whether Tyson Helton had any real experience as offensive coordinator calling plays was always cloudy, but if he had any, it wasn’t much. It seemed that nearly everybody had a learning curve to climb.

Not so with Chaney, whose first job as a Power 5 offensive coordinator was all the way back in 1997 for Purdue. Except for a brief period as a position coach in the NFL, he’s been one ever since.

It’s not that Pruitt’s staff doesn’t have experience, but many of the key guys last season had been learning something new. Chaney brings some much-needed experience to the staff, and the fact that he’s on the offensive side of the ball should allow Pruitt to focus even more on the defense, which, let’s be honest, also needs some work.

No apparent head-coaching aspirations

One of the oddest things about Jim Chaney is his incredibly long-tenure as a coordinator without ever having served as a head coach (the one-game as Vols interim notwithstanding.) As I said above, Chaney’s been an offensive coordinator since 1997, except for a three-year period as offensive line and tight ends coach in the NFL. He was part of Lane Kiffin’s Coaching Chimera in 2009, and when the Tennessee Rumspringa was over, the entire Chimera disappeared into the dark night with the exception of Jim Chaney. Derek Dooley was many things, but not-smart wasn’t one of them, and he persuaded Chaney to stay. Chaney didn’t leave Rocky Top until Dooley was fired and Butch Jones brought in his own guys. That didn’t work.

I can’t seem to find it, but I have a vague recollection of Chaney once telling Tennessee media while serving as Vols coordinator that he was content as a life-long coordinator and simply didn’t want to be a head coach. Maybe I made that up. Maybe that’s graciously responding to an insulting question. I don’t know. But he’s been a really good coordinator for a really long time, and in a world of ladder-climbing and self-ambition, he appears to have that rare talent of being content. The chief problem with coordinators is that they either don’t succeed or they leave when they do. If I’m reading him right, Chaney seems to be the perfect combination of excellence and stability.

Recruiting? Maybe?

I don’t know if Jim Chaney is a prolific recruiter. Heck, maybe he hates it or is terrible at it or something, and maybe that’s the main reason he has no ambition to become a head coach.

But I do know that he’s served as the offensive coordinator for the Georgia Bulldogs that past few seasons and that the Bulldogs are currently neck-and-neck with Alabama for recruiting the most talent to their respective campuses. For what it’s worth, 247Sports credits Chaney with landing some of Georgia’s most impressive guys. There are a lot of stars on that list.

If the hiring of Chaney can help Tennessee to lure more and better talent to Knoxville than Athens, that will be a very good thing. At the very least, you’d have to think that losing a coordinator would introduce some uncertainty into the mix for guys on the fence.

Tennessee’s search for an offensive coordinator to replace Tyson Helton may have taken forever, but it seems clear that the Vols have once again stuck the landing and somehow ended up with an upgrade at an incredibly important staff position.

Tennessee 87 Missouri 63: Each Surprise More Pleasant

Isn’t this the game Cuonzo would’ve wanted?

Grant Williams fouled out with four points on 1-of-8 shooting. The Vols lead the nation in assist percentage at 69%. Tonight: only 12 assists on 31 made shots, 38.7%. Missouri made Tennessee beat them with more one-on-one play, and do so without much of anything from its best player.

And…we did. Convincingly. Massively.

Cuonzo remains a Rorschach for Tennessee fans, but what is fact is the way his UT teams played at home against the best competition. His first team beat an Elite Eight Florida squad and lost to Kentucky’s National Championship team by three. His second team saw Marshall Henderson and Ole Miss pull away late for a 92-74 win, but the Vols were within single digits for most of the second half. They beat Wichita State and another Elite Eight Florida squad in Knoxville, plus Kentucky by 30. His final team battled the Gators, undefeated in the SEC, to the final minute in Knoxville.

I’ve never seen a Cuonzo Martin team take a beating like this at home.

If Tennessee can do this, with Grant Williams and effective ball movement handcuffed, to a bubble squad on the road? I’m not sure how many SEC teams on the bubble or below are going to beat the Vols this year. At this point, we get to question how many will even threaten.

When great individual efforts were required tonight, how about Kyle Alexander: 14 points, 17 rebounds, three blocks. Jordan Bowden came off the bench with 20, again. And best of all, Lamonte Turner looked off in his return against Georgia, but not tonight: 3-of-4 from the arc.

Tennessee was favored by seven and won by 24. The good news, in a sense, is the challenge continues to increase: we’re off to Gainesville on Saturday, where the Vols were only favored by one in KenPom before tonight. As was the case after Georgia, I keep trying to remind myself any win is a good win and to appreciate everything about this team. But this team, even outside of what we would consider its best basketball, is giving us far more to appreciate than we thought possible.

Onward and upward. Go Vols.