Almost nine months ago, the SEC Tournament was cancelled just before Tennessee and Alabama would’ve met in the quarterfinals. The Vols beat Missouri in football 66 days ago, which feels more or less the same as nine months ago.

The deep frustration with football can make it easy to forget to be grateful we got any sports at all this year. Basketball, in its sixth attempt for a season opener, reminded us of some of that today. And then for the first eight-and-a-half minutes, we got exactly what we wanted: the Vols jumped a good Colorado team 19-4, and not on the strength of their freshmen but their veterans.

The Buffaloes went to zone, and it worked, bogging everything down. But the Vols never relinquished the lead, and smothered Colorado throughout: the Buffaloes shot 33.3% from the field with 23 turnovers. Tennessee wasn’t much better, but they didn’t have to be in securing a 56-47 win in the season opener.

The first impressions:

Rick Barnes still loves the foul line jumper

Instead of the threes-and-frees game the NBA has become, Tennessee continues to generate a bunch of good looks in the mid-range. It’s not just something the Vols went to with Grant Williams to let him create: Tennessee got good looks from two from John Fulkerson, Yves Pons, and even E.J. Anosike. They did not go down easy: Pons was 1-of-9, Anosike 1-of-6, and Fulkerson came on late to finish 4-of-10. But they were there, seemingly by design again.

Meanwhile, the “who takes the threes,” question: Victor Bailey early, finishing 2-of-6. Jaden Springer late, with a pair of big shots in the second half. And Santiago Vescovi throughout, who hit 3-of-4. The Vols took 19 threes on the night, still finding their best looks inside the arc against the zone. Smallest sample size, of course, but we’ll see how many possessions go through the mid-range going forward.

The freshmen will earn trust

The vets started: Vescovi, JJJ, Pons, Fulkerson, and Victor Bailey. I was curious if they’d finish, and it looked like Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer would both give them a run for their money midway through the second half. Johnson had a couple of freshmen turnovers early and couldn’t get going, but made a pair of sensational defensive plays back-to-back, showing the excellent and unusual combination of tenacity and intelligence for a freshman. He added an alley-oop and a baseline jumper in the second half. But then he turned it over twice more, and exited the game at the under four. Jaden Springer turned it over immediately following, and the Vols went back to their starting five veteran lineup.

It worked: Colorado cut it to five with three to play, but the Vols responded with Fulkerson from the midrange. The defense drew a charge, then Josiah James created a turnover the next time down, and it was free throws from there.

When you only score 56, 10 combined points from your five-stars falls into context. I doubt Yves Pons is going to finish with two on 1-of-9 shooting very often, though he was a monster on the glass with 10 rebounds. But those guys will certainly get their chances…they’ll just have to earn them down the stretch by playing cleaner basketball along the way.

Early rotations & foul trouble

“Can they win if Fulkerson is in foul trouble,” is now 1-0. He picked up his third around 90 seconds into the second half, and though the Vols didn’t excel without him, they didn’t falter. Tennessee played a glorified nine-man rotation, with Uros Plavsic making a brief appearance in the first half. Otherwise it was what we thought: the veteran starters, two five stars, and Anosike, plus six minutes from Olivier Nkamhoua. Barnes was high on him early last season when Fulkerson was still establishing himself, and he got the game one vote of confidence as a bench piece.

Otherwise the Vols hit the numbers they wanted without going much over: the starting vets all played 30-35 minutes minus Fulkerson (23), Anosike played 14, Keon Johnson played 13, and Jaden Springer 9. Again, those last two numbers will increase as their turnover decrease, methinks.

It’s one game, but the Vols leapt into the Top 10 in KenPom defense at #7. Up next it’s Cincinnati on Saturday (12:30 PM before the Vols and Vandy at 4:00), in what could be another slugfest if it at all resembles last year’s game. There is a lot to improve on from tonight, but if defense is your most reliable tool in pandemic times, the Vols looked the part tonight.

1-0.

We would’ve taken the basketball Vols any way we could get them at this point: football struggling, five games cancelled, a shot at #1 Gonzaga lost. The fifth of those covid cancellations was UT-Martin, our in-state brethren a late replacement…and 334th in KenPom. Get well soon to the Skyhawks…but now, in their place, a much more interesting option has appeared.

Tad Boyle’s Buffaloes live and die on the bubble: four NCAA Tournament appearances, two NIT’s and a CBI in his first eight years in Boulder. Those four trips to the big dance all landed between 8-11 on the seed list; they were 21-11 (10-8) and projected to be somewhere in there again when things got shut down in March.

Nevermind the usual preseason games that don’t exist this season: Colorado will give the Vols a much tougher test than they usually see in game one under Rick Barnes. Tennessee played Xavier in the opener in Cuonzo Martin’s last season and VCU in Donnie Tyndall’s opener. Since then, Tennessee has opened with UNC Asheville, Chattanooga, Presbyterian, Lenoir-Rhyne, and Asheville again. This is not a warm-up for Cincinnati on Saturday; the Buffaloes should present a similar challenge.

The loss of Gonzaga will sting on Selection Sunday. Tennessee still gets Kansas in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, but the rest of our shortened non-conference schedule is now Colorado (KenPom #50), Cincinnati (#57), Appalachian State (#192), and a pair of cupcakes in Tennessee Tech (#321) and USC Upstate (#295). With a smaller sample size, it’ll be harder for the selection committee to differentiate between a good SEC team and a good Big East team, etc. Other than yet-to-play Tennessee and 2-0 Florida, conference heavyweights haven’t started clean: Kentucky lost to Richmond and Kansas, LSU lost to Saint Louis, Alabama was blown out by Stanford. For Tennessee, these opening games with Colorado and Cincinnati can go a long way in setting the opening tone.

Wright was one of the best facilitators in the nation last season, both leading the team in scoring (14.4 ppg) and finishing 68th nationally in assist rate. He plays 35 minutes a night and started hot this year, getting 24 in Colorado’s 76-58 win at Kansas State. The Buffaloes have shown no ill effects from a five-game losing streak to end the 2019-20 campaign; they were 21-6 on February 22 before coming apart with an overtime loss to Utah and four others all by at least seven points.

The fun of the Pons potential – the “put him on the other team’s best player every night” scenario – is Wright goes just 6’0″. Last year Colorado also got double-figure scoring from 6’7″ Tyler Bey, a second round pick of the Dallas Mavericks. Now 6’8″ freshman Jabari Walker is off to a nice start, scoring 19 points with nine rebounds in just 32 minutes of work in the first two games. Like Tennessee, Colorado is heavy on seniors and freshmen: 6’6″ Maddox Daniels and 6’7″ Jeriah Horne join Wright as veterans, Keeshawn Barthelemy joins Walker as a freshman seeing significant action.

Boyle’s teams are usually defense-first and excel at taking away second chances. Last year the Buffaloes were 35th nationally in opponent threes attempted, but teams splashed 34.2% of those (234th nationally).

This leads to one of the most interesting questions about Tennessee: how many threes, and who takes them?

At their best two years ago, the Vols shot 36.7% from the arc, 63rd nationally, but finished just 324th in threes attempted. That offense could get what it wanted through great ball movement, a staple of Barnes’ teams here. Last year the Vols were 217th nationally in threes attempted.

The lineups will be fascinating to see by themselves. But in particular, who gets the green light to shoot, and if this thing tightens up late, who gets those looks? Last year Lamonte Turner took 4.3 threes per game while he played, and Jordan Bowden took 5.5. That’s a big chunk of the puzzle. Among returning players, Santiago Vescovi took 5.3, but that number leans a little to his initial minutes. Yves Pons took 2.8, and Josiah James took just over three.

If Vescovi is playing more of the true point guard role this year, how many does he shoot? What about the freshmen? What about Victor Bailey, rumored to be the best shooter on this team the moment he stepped foot in Knoxville?

There is no warm-up, and the outcomes will weigh more heavily in the final analysis than usual. It’s a big game, right away.

And we’re so happy to see you.

6:00 PM ET Tuesday, online at SEC Network+.

Go Vols.