Gameday Today: Hoops sharpens the scissors, football working like heck

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

. . . make it this one from Will: This One’s for the Scissors.

Hoops

After all, it is March, and few things are more fun than March basketball.

Rick Barnes, though, is still All Business:

We’ve already covered yesterday just how big tomorrow’s game against Georgia is, so today we’ll just add that Admiral Jelly Ace Boogie Schofield has been waiting for this game since the last time the two teams played.

I’m posting this just because the picture is adorable:


Football

Stanford quarterback Keller Chryst has committed to playing for the Vols this fall as a grad-transfer.

Reportedly, Butch Jones’ picture isn’t the only one being removed from the Neyland Stadium Jumbotron next week. They’re all coming down, although word is that another of General Neyland is going to be substituted for his current one. Rumors of the other two include Al Wilson and Jason Witten as candidates.

Mike Griffith has an in-depth (34+ minutes) video interview with incoming running back Jeremy Banks.

The Vols’ football strength staff is going to collectively earn $250k more than Jones’ prior staff. If dollars are an upgrade, cool.

247Sports has an in-depth look at the linebacking corps for this fall.

VFL John Kelly is taking VFL Alvin Kamara’s advice to just be himself at the NFL Combine.

Lady Vols

The Lady Vols banked in a last-second three-pointer to beat Auburn last night and advance in the SEC Tournament.

 

Lady Vols advance on a last-second, banked-in three-pointer against Auburn

The Lady Vols basketball team advanced to the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament last night by beating Auburn 64-61 with a thrilling last-second banked-in three-pointer from Rennia Davis.

Holly Warlick looked and sounded like she could barely believe it:

 

Jaime Nared led the team in scoring with 17 despite having to leave early after a hard fall on a layup attempt. Mercedes Russell had a double-double (her 45th) with 12 points and 15 rebounds, partially on the strength of a 10-for-10 night at the free throw line. Davis and Meme Jackson also had double figures in points.

Both teams played full-court press for much of the game, which led to a combined 39 points, and the teams traded the lead the entire game.

The game-winner came just after Auburn tied the game at 61 with 13 seconds left. Tennessee tried to draw up a play for Anastasia Hayes, but she had to throw out of a double team to Davis, who banked in the game-winning three-pointer with half a second remaining.

The Lady Vols play 2-seed South Carolina tonight at 6:00 p.m. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.

Grad transfer Keller Chryst commits to Tennessee

Former Stanford quarterback Keller Chryst announced on Twitter last night that he has committed to Tennessee, and he used an awesome picture to do it:

GoVols247 confirmed the news with Chryst himself.

Chryst will graduate from Stanford this June with eligibility remaining and plans to enroll at Tennessee soon thereafter. His decision comes on the heels of an official visit to Tennessee last weekend.

The third-best pro-style quarterback in the Class of 2014, Chryst redshirted as a freshman for the Cardinal and then played four games (0 starts) as a sophomore, 12 (6-0 as the starter) as a junior, and 7 (all starts) this past season before giving way to KJ Costello after a 5-2 start.

Chryst, whose father Geep is the tight ends coach for the Denver Broncos and whose uncle Paul is the head coach at Wisconsin, will compete for the starting quarterback position immediately against redshirt sophomore Jarrett Guarantano, sophomore Will McBride, and incoming freshman JT Shrout.

Tennessee earned Chryst’s commitment on the power of its new coaching staff, as Chryst, immediately after his official visit this weekend, specifically mentioned running backs coach Chris Weinke and offensive coordinator Tyson Helton as part of a group of “guys from all over that have a good background and football history.” That the Vols will be running a pro-style offense in the SEC was also factor.

Check out Chryst’s 2017 highlights. If you’re like me, you’ll find the play at 1:15 amusing.

See? He LINES UP UNDER CENTER AT THE GOAL LINE TO RUN THE BALL LIKE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO . . . oh, wait, he threw a touchdown instead. Okay, that works, too.

Gameday Today: SEC Championships and bracketology updates

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

. . . make it this column from VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs, giving props to Rick Barnes for not only doing something special but also doing it the right way.

SEC Regular Season Championship

The last game of the regular season for the Vols basketball team is sold out. It’s not just that it’s the last home game of the season or that it’s senior night for James Daniel III or even that Tennessee’s attendance has been pretty good this season (9th in the country with an average of 15,779.)

It’s that the Vols are in the running for an SEC regular-season championship. Whether they earn it depends not only on whether they take care of business against Georgia at 6:00 p.m. Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena, but also what Auburn does on their home floor against South Carolina the same day. And in case you’re thinking that a regular season championship doesn’t mean much to a team in a tournament sport, well, Lamonte Turner would like a word, please:

“We are definitely playing for a championship,” Turner said after scoring 12 points at Mississippi State. “That’s big. Coming into this game, we knew it was a must-win if we wanted to even have a chance at winning a regular-season championship. Yeah, it’s big for us.”

So yeah, both Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield implored Vol Nation to attend this weekend, and the fans responded.

Always listen to Ace Boogie. It will be only the third sell-out of the season, the other two being the North Carolina and Kentucky games.

SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament

Regardless of what happens Saturday, the Vols have at least locked up the coveted double-bye in the SEC Tournament, meaning they get to rest on Wednesday and Thursday and won’t play until Friday. If they earn the 1-seed, they’ll play at 1:00 p.m. ET on Friday, March 9, and if they are a 2-seed, they’ll play at 7:00 p.m.

Behind Tennessee and Auburn, the field is a heaping pile of poisonous snakes:

The NCAA Tournament

Regarding the Big Dance, the Vols are currently slotted firmly in as a 4- to 2-seed in the Bracket Matrix, with the 3-seed being the most prevalent.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has the Vols as a 3-seed in Wichita against Charleston and in a bracket with Nevada, Purdue, West Virginia, and Virginia.

CBSSports also has Tennessee as a 3-seed but playing against TCU in Dallas. Others of note in the Vols’ portion of the bracket there include Purdue, Clemson, and Kansas.

And SB Nation has the Big Orange as a 3-seed in Dallas against Murray State and in a bracket with Rhode Island, Purdue, Wichita State, and Xavier.

It seems that everybody is anticipating a Tennessee-Purdue rematch. Except for USAToday, who has the Vols as a 3-seed against Charleston in Dallas and in a bracket with Houston, North Carolina, Arizona, and Xavier.

Other Vols tidbits

The football team is getting to work:


Grad-transfer quarterback Gardner Minshew has chosen Alabama (raise your hand if you think an ECU QB is going to beat out both Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa), which means that Tennessee is likely now all-in with former Stanford QB Keller Chryst.

WVLT is reporting that the removal of that picture of Butch Jones from the Jumbotron is scheduled to start Monday, much to the relief of way too many people way too worried about the wrong things.

The Lady Vols open play in the Women’s SEC Tournament tonight at 7:00 ET against Auburn and are embracing expectations:

 

And look at that, the Vols baseball team is now 6-3 after a 9-1 victory over Arkansas Pine Bluff yesterday.

Gameday Today: Jelly’s wild night in Starkville

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

. . . make it Will’s post about the Vols basketball team putting it all together at just the right time.

Vols hoops dominates Mississippi State

So yeah, Tennessee basketball put all of the pieces together (same link as above) and played excellent basketball against a Mississippi State Bulldogs team fighting to stay on the bubble and beat them 76-54. It must have been the shoes.

The player of the game once again was Admiral Schofield, whom Wes Rucker called the Magnolia State Manimal. That’s appropriate, as Schofield flexed his entire skill set last night, including his muscle:


But State coach Ben Howland credits not just Schofield but also Grant Williams and says Tennessee is hard to beat partly because “they have those two bulls.”

And the rest of the guys are really beginning to come into their own as well, including Yves Pons. By the way, can you imagine having to do an interview with media while you’re still learning the language? Here, this will help you imagine that. (That’s a video of Pons’ post-game interview, which I would have embedded but for the auto-play feature I couldn’t turn off. But be sure to watch it.)

After that, this happened:

Also, Arkansas beat Auburn last night, so the Vols are now tied for first in the SEC with one game remaining. Tennessee has Georgia at home Saturday, while Auburn has South Carolina at home.

Highlights:

And post-game commentary from the SEC Network:

And wonder of wonders, Rick Barnes was again actually saying nice things about his team after the game:

Maybe it’s just that he’s finally satisfied that his players are going to evaluate and criticize themselves now (this video also features Schofield talking about peanut butter and jelly):

Other Vols tidbits

The Vols baseball team beat Middle Tennessee 5-4 yesterday.

Trevor Daniel, Rashaan Gaulden, John Kelly, and Kahlil McKenzie are all scheduled to participate in the NFL Combine this week.

VFL Scotty Hopson has signed a 10-day contract with the Dallas Mavericks.

ESPN’s Chris Low has a really good in-depth feature on Jeremy Pruitt’s challenge of rebuilding the Vols football team.

Tennessee 76 Mississippi State 54 – The Right Time

We’ve been Mississippi State.

For all three of Cuonzo Martin’s years and the final season under Bruce Pearl, the Vols came to the last week of the regular season on the bubble. There were some games like this one, when a tournament-bound team came into Knoxville, one last opportunity for the home team. Sometimes we won. Sometimes we lost.

It’s been a long time – eight years – since the Vols were the alpha in this scenario. We’ve been more accustomed to the hunger and desperation of the team in pursuit. All that makes it a tough ask for the alpha, on the road on a night like tonight. And the Bulldogs looked the part early, leading 25-17 in the first half.

For all of those reasons, this might have been Tennessee’s best win of the season. And there is no better time than the soon-to-be-March present for that.

Mississippi State was 27th in KenPom’s defensive efficiency ratings coming into this game. Tennessee carved them up for 56.3% from the floor.

The Bulldogs put two 6’10″+ guys on the floor and made it difficult for Tennessee to play through Grant Williams from the opening tip. No problem: for the second game in a row, Admiral Schofield took over. After a career-high 25 at Ole Miss on Saturday, Schofield added 24 tonight on 9-of-18 from the floor. And Tennessee was intentional: no other player took more than eight shots, Grant Williams had only three shots, and the Vols didn’t settle for threes, finishing just 4-of-11 from the arc.

And they torched the Bulldogs, at one point making 11 consecutive field goals in the second half. That’s hard to do in warm-ups.

Meanwhile Tennessee’s defense helped break open a six-point halftime lead by holding the Bulldogs to just two field goals in the first eight minutes of the second half. Quinndary Weatherspoon had 17 points, but got no consistent help. The Bulldogs went 4-of-20 from the arc, missed six free throws, and finished at just 39.2% from the field. A team with only one home loss on the year was dismantled on its own floor in the second half.

And look, I think Mississippi State is good. I just don’t think they’ve played a team like Tennessee in Starkville.

Tennessee’s best result is still their victory over Purdue. Sweeping Kentucky is historic, and the win at Rupp three weeks ago will be remembered for a long time. But there was a quiet fear in its aftermath, quickly replacing whispers of a one seed: had the Vols peaked?

Tennessee left Lexington and lost in Tuscaloosa by 28, narrowly escaped South Carolina, then lost at Georgia. They gutted out a win against Florida, then went from up 20 to up four to up 21 to winning by eight at Ole Miss. There were some nice moments in there, but nothing that made you feel as confident as we did walking out of Rupp.

Tonight, on the road with everything on the line for Mississippi State, I think the Vols played their best game of the year. They won by 22, locked up at least the two seed in the SEC and stayed alive to win the league. They kept themselves in the conversation for a two or three seed in the NCAA Tournament. And, most importantly in the last week of the regular season, they proved their best basketball is on the floor right now and not behind them. This is a very, very, very good sign.

Go Vols.

Tennessee Vols at Mississippi State Bulldogs: game time, TV channel, and game thread

Tennessee continues its trip through the Magnolia State this evening with a game in Starkville against Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are only 9-7 in the SEC, but are 21-8 overall and 7-2 this month and have lost only one game at home this season.

The game’s at 7:00 and will be televised on the SEC Network. Online, you can catch it at WatchESPN.

See you in the comments below.

Go Vols!

 

Tennessee at Mississippi State Preview

Five of Tennessee’s first six conference games were against what should be NCAA Tournament teams. We thought there would be only two others after that, three if Alabama got its act together. But here, in the final week of the regular season, the league has one more surprise in store.

Mississippi State played a bunch of nobodies in an 8-0 start, then went to Cincinnati and lost by 15. A 2-5 start in league play made them an afterthought; they could still aspire to the program’s first NIT appearance since 2012.

But then came four wins in a row, including home victories over Missouri and Alabama. They lost the return trip to CoMo in overtime, then lost by one at Vanderbilt. But they’ve since won three straight, including a huge 12-point win at Texas A&M and an overtime victory against South Carolina. Now the Bulldogs are 21-8 (9-7), 50th in KenPom and 62nd in RPI. This is very much a bubble team, which means this is very much a game the Bulldogs need.

What Mississippi State does well:

  • Defensive Efficiency: MSU is 28th in KenPom’s defensive ratings, 35th in effective field goal percentage allowed. They’ve been good at this all year.
  • Getting hot at the right time: Five of MSU’s six highest-scoring games in league play have been in February. They actually lost scoring 80+ against Missouri (in overtime) and Vanderbilt, then put 79 on Ole Miss and 93 on Texas A&M on the road. They’re balanced at their best: Quinndary Weatherspoon scores 14.7 per game and brother Nick adds 11.1, but increased production from Tyson Carter and Abdul Ado has fueled their most recent run.
  • Shot blocking: Ado is 6’11” and 55th nationally in block percentage, and 6’10” Aric Holman is 73rd in the same stat. MSU sometimes puts both on the floor at the same time, which could create difficult match-ups and opportunities for Tennessee on the block.

What Tennessee can do to win:

  • Encourage MSU to shoot threes: The Bulldogs have hit better than 40% from the arc just five times this year. Mississippi State shoots 31.2% from the arc on the year (333rd of 351 nationally) and 30.8% in conference play (13th).
  • Don’t be afraid to defend aggressively: The Bulldogs also suffer at the charity stripe, 68.6% on the year (277th) and 69.9% in conference play (10th). They’re not particularly good at getting to the line either. I don’t think it’s in Tennessee’s best interests to do anything to encourage Grant Williams to foul more often, but the rest of the lineup? Might be a good night to get up in their face.
  • Take especially good care of the basketball: The Bulldogs force a steal on 9.8% of opponent possessions, 84th nationally. And they’re just as good at not turning it over themselves, which means possessions will be especially valuable. Mississippi State is 14-2 when forcing 13+ turnovers, but just 7-6 when forcing 12 or less.

The Bulldogs have lost just once at home this season, to Auburn on January 13. South Carolina just took them to overtime and Alabama lost by just four earlier this month. They also have not faced Kentucky, Florida, or Texas A&M in Starkville. Will the Bulldogs play their way onto the right side of the bubble? Or will Tennessee stay in the race for the SEC title and firm up its chances for a two or three seed?

Early game woo! 7:00 PM ET, SEC Network.

Per VolQuest Report: Trey Smith Out for Spring

Good football news has been hard to come by in Knoxville the past few weeks, and Saturday brought another blow as VolQuest.com’s Austin Price and Brent Hubbs reported all-star sophomore offensive lineman Trey Smith will miss spring drills to deal with a “medical issue.”

Fortunately for the Vols, it doesn’t appear to be something that will keep Smith out for the 2018 season, but this is not good news for a UT team that needs Smith to take a pivotal step forward.

The 6’6″, 320-pound former top-ranked recruit emerged easily as UT’s best player on the offensive line a season ago, having the ability to play a lot of different positions. It was not uncommon for him to maul everybody he went against.

Though Smith needed to become more consistent, he was well on his way to being an All-SEC and All-American performer. Now, at the very least, Smith will have to knock off the rust when fall drills come around.

If there is a silver lining to this news, it’s that Tennessee will have the opportunity to get its newcomers as many reps as possible. Though JUCO offensive tackle Jahmir Johnson won’t be enrolled early — something that would have helped him and the Vols considerably — freshmen Jerome Carvin and Ollie Lane are. They will need to improve dramatically along with incumbent players Marcus Tatum and Drew Richmond.

When Smith returns, hopefully he will be at full-tilt. If so, the extra time and attention for the youngsters may wind up being a good thing. But in an all-important offseason, make no mistake: This is bad news for Smith and Tennessee as they try to perform for a new coaching staff and improve as a unit.

Riley Locklear, K’Rojhn Calbert, Devante Brooks, Ryan Johnson and others must become viable candidates to be SEC-caliber linemen, something they’ve yet to prove. With their leader on the sideline now for an undetermined amount of time, that becomes even more crucial.

Tennessee 73 Ole Miss 65 – Mostly Good with Room for Improvement

The Vols came out firing in Oxford, building a 16-4 lead in the first six minutes behind four three-pointers. The lead swelled to 29-9, and was still 15 points at halftime.

But the first three minutes of the second half were unkind to Tennessee…or, more appropriately, Tennessee wasn’t kind to itself. Four turnovers in those first three minutes sparked an 11-0 Rebel run, cutting the lead to four.

Tennessee’s defense righted the ship, holding the Rebels scoreless for the next four minutes while the Vols built the lead back to nine. UT would eventually push it to 21, was still up 14 with two minutes to play, and won by eight. The Vols led by double digits for almost 30 minutes. There were only a few truly uncomfortable moments.

What can Tennessee learn from those moments? I think sometimes the offense seems to get stuck in the space between feeding the ball and forcing the ball to Grant Williams. Tennessee’s best basketball plays through #2, and at times the Vols can get him the ball cleanly and let him do his thing (as was the case against Florida). At other times defenses swarm and deny him the ball, and the Vols can clearly fall back on good looks this creates. But when the defense doesn’t show its hand, occasionally the Vols learn the hard way not to force the issue. Many of Tennessee’s turnovers come from ill-advised passes into the post.

The Vols adjusted; again, credit the defense first for stopping the bleeding before the offense got its footing. And credit Admiral Schofield, who gets much of his offense outside the go inside to Grant/kick it out for three routine. Today he had a career-high 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting, along with seven rebounds. While Williams struggled with just six points on the day, Schofield proved the Vols can still win comfortably. Tennessee also got big minutes from Derrick Walker coming back from an ankle injury; he finished with five points and seven rebounds. Walker got some of Kyle Alexander’s duties today, posting up in similar fashion to Williams and executing well.

Ole Miss helped by shooting 1-of-23 from the arc. But despite their struggles early in the second half, Tennessee still finished with 20 assists on 25 made baskets, the fifth time this season the Vols had an assist percentage of 80% or better (and the second time against the Rebels).

The Vols go to 21-7 (11-5), and could lock up a double bye in the SEC Tournament by the end of the day. It’s the best regular season win total since 2010, and they can tie that Elite Eight squad at 23-7 with a pair of wins next week.

Go Vols.