Tag Archives: Rick Barnes

A look at the Vols’ recent history with transfers

The transfer portal is all the rage nowadays in college sports, especially in basketball. I think fans follow transfers more closely than they do recruiting now, at least based off the interactions and discussion I’ve seen online.

In this era of player freedom, the impact of transfers is under even more scrutiny than ever before. That seems especially true for Tennessee and a fanbase that hasn’t seen a true major-impact transfer in…well, quite some time.

This offseason, Rick Barnes has done something he’s never done at Tennessee: He’s brought in more than one transfer who can play immediately. USC Upstate guard Jordan Gainey, Harvard wing/forward Chris Ledlum, and Northern Colorado guard Dalton Knecht have all three announced their intentions to transfer to the Vols, marking the first time Barnes has added multiple transfers in the same offseason with the expectation of them playing the following season. Prior to the 2019-20 campaign, Barnes and his staff landed Victor Bailey Jr. from Oregon and Uros Plavsic from Arizona State, but Bailey redshirted his first year on campus, and Plavsic didn’t get to play till midseason as he fought for eligibility.

How Gainey, Ledlum, and Knecht will perform for the Vols remains to be seen, but there’s hope that all three can fill holes on Tennessee’s roster for the upcoming season, particularly Knecht.

But based on the Vols’ recent history with transfers, it’s understandable if fans’ expectations are low for UT’s newest additions.

I looked back over the last 20 years to see what kind of impact transfers have made for Tennessee’s men’s basketball program. I looked exclusively at transfers from one college to another, whether they were multi-year transfers or grad transfers. I didn’t include JUCO transfers or walk-on transfers just to simplify things, so someone like Josh Bone wasn’t included in this research.

The results backed up what I suspected: Tennessee has had some really bad luck with transfers over the last couple decades, and it’s only been more glaring over the last 5-8 years.

Starting with Jemere Hendrix in 2003 all the way to Tyreke Key this past season, the list of transfers into Tennessee’s basketball program is a rollercoaster of production. For the first decade or so of this millennium, the Vols actually had a pretty good run with who they brought in as transfers. Scooter McFadgon was an exceptional scorer on some bad Tennessee teams, and Andre Patterson was a solid contributor for his two seasons, especially in his one year under Bruce Pearl.

Speaking of Pearl, he also brought in J.P. Prince, who was instrumental in Tennessee’s 2010 Elite Eight run and was a consistent third option on the offensive end. He also nabbed Tyler Smith, who was on his way to possibly being the best transfer in Vols’ history until he was kicked off the team after his arrest. Pearl also got Jeronne Maymon to come to Tennessee from Marquette, but Maymon’s impact wasn’t felt until Cuonzo Martin took over as head coach. Maymon and Jarnell Stokes were a one-two punch in the post for multiple years, and both gobbled up rebounds like machines.

Martin also reeled in Antonio Barton from Memphis, and he was a serviceable point guard who played a larger role than fans may remember in that 2013-14 season when UT went on a surprising Sweet Sixteen run.

After Barton, though, things have become…less memorable on the transfer front.

Donnie Tyndall had to completely remake Tennessee’s roster in his one and only season, and his two transfers amounted to very little on the court. Dominic Woodson played in a handful of games before deciding to leave the program, and Ian Chiles barely got to play before suffering a season-ending injury.

Then came Rick Barnes.

Barnes’ luck with transfers at Tennessee has been poor, to say the least. In Barnes’ first few years at the helm, he brought in Lew Evans, who wasn’t much more than a depth piece, and James Daniel III, who was a good three-point shooter but never could return to form from his time at Howard.

Then came Uros Plavsic and Victory Bailey Jr. in the same offseason. Plavsic is still on Tennessee’s roster as of now and has actually played more games than any other incoming transfer at Tennessee over the last 20 years. But his play is probably best described as “sporadic,” and he has failed to be as impressive on the boards as most would like. As for Bailey, his first season after redshirting was pretty solid, averaging almost nine points a game while connecting on almost 34% of his threes. His production fell off a cliff in his second season, though, and he left the program and followed Kim English to George Mason after that.

Following those two additions was E.J. Anosike, who might be the most disappointing transfer for the Vols in the last 20 years, if not longer. Justin Powell transferred from Auburn the next offseason and showed some promise as a three-point shooter, but he never saw a lot of minutes and didn’t thrive in Knoxville.

And that brings us to Tyreke Key, who transferred from Indiana State for this past season.

This may surprise you, but Key may actually be Barnes’ best transfer addition to date at Tennessee. Which says more about Barnes’ luck with transfers than it does Key’s production with the Vols.

Now, unlike a lot of people, I’m not going to sit here and trash Key. I think he got a lot of undue hate tossed his way, and while his play deserved criticism, I believe some went over the top with it and either didn’t know, forgot, or willfully ignored the fact that he was coming off shoulder surgery and missed the entire 2021-22 season at Indiana State and was asked to play out of position a good chunk of this past season due to injuries to Tennessee’s roster.

Anyway.

Key finished the year averaging just over eight points, 2.5 rebounds, and 1.3 assists while making 33.3% of his threes. Nothing stellar there at all, but he made some good contributions, albeit with a lot of inconsistency.

The fact that Key is probably Tennessee’s best transfer in the last 9-10 years says a lot about the production the Vols have gotten from transfers recently, though. And it makes sense why fans would question just how good a transfer can be at Tennessee under Barnes.

Personally, I think someone like Ledlum is the exact type of player who can thrive with Barnes, even though there definitely will be a regression with his numbers considering he’s jumping from the Ivy League to the SEC. And I think Knecht will play a vital role on the team next season and could be the perfect versatile scoring threat the Vols have lacked the last few years.

Only time will tell if my suspicions about Ledlum and Knecht are true, and both have a lot of years’ worth of bad transfer juju to overcome for fans to get more on board.

Both of those players, and Gainey, all have something in common: They’re transferring to Tennessee from a “smaller” school in a non-high major conference. That’s been the trend under Barnes, too. He’s mainly grabbed players from mid-majors to come to Knoxville, and only three of the transfers he’s brought in have been from other Power Six programs (Uros Plavsic, Victor Bailey Jr., and Justin Powell).

From the 2003-04 season to the 2014-15 season, only two of Tennessee’s 10 transfers were from mid-major schools. The Vols scored three scholarship transfers from Memphis in that span (Scooter McFadgon, Antonio Barton, and Dominic Woodson), and the other five were from other Power Six conferences. Only John Fields (UNC Wilmington) and Ian Chiles (IUPUI) were from smaller schools.

All that isn’t to say that you have to come from a Power Six conference to have success at Tennessee as a transfer, but so far those have been the most accomplished transfers into Knoxville this millennium.

Here’s a full look at the stats of Tennessee’s transfers over the last 20 years:

PlayerPrev SchoolGamesMinsPPGRPGAPGFG%3FG%FT%
Jemere HendrixClemson5718.44.84.50.451.8%N/A68.4%
Scooter McFadgonMemphis5430.816.04.21.939.3%35.9%87.9%
Andre PattersonUCLA6124.98.46.41.451.6%22.2%63.4%
JP PrinceArizona9523.79.43.72.753.6%22.5%60.4%
Tyler SmithIowa8229.814.96.03.449.0%30.9%73.4%
John FieldsUNC Wilmington3411.62.63.00.258.7%N/A46.4%
Jeronne MaymonMarquette8425.09.77.21.054.2%N/A64.6%
Antonio BartonMemphis3725.17.52.22.137.3%34.0%68.9%
Dominic WoodsonMemphis412.03.52.00.350.0%N/A33.3%
Ian ChilesIUPUI34.70.70.70.350.0%N/AN/A
Lew EvansUtah State3214.83.42.80.934.5%29.5%68.5%
James Daniel IIIHoward3519.75.61.42.836.6%37.2%72.7%
Uros PlavsicArizona State10111.33.72.80.557.3%N/A47.0%
Victor Bailey Jr.Oregon6116.36.21.41.038.5%30.4%77.5%
EJ AnosikeSacred Heart228.51.71.90.334.2%N/A60%
Justin PowellAuburn3014.13.71.50.739.2%38.1%73.3%
Tyreke KeyIndiana State3324.48.22.51.334.0%33.3%74.1%

What does it take to make it to the Final Four?

Another NCAA Tournament has come and gone, and it gives us another opportunity to try and figure out why in the world the Vols just can’t seem to make it to the Final Four.

That, of course, has been a question on the minds of Tennessee fans for decades now, but it’s been put even more into focus over the last 15 or so years with the likes of Bruce Pearl and Rick Barnes leading the Vols to multiple trips to the Sweet Sixteen in that span. Yet, with a total of seven Sweet Sixteen appearances since 2000, Tennessee has managed to to advance to the Elite Eight only once in those seven attempts, and there have been zero Final Fours then or at any point in UT men’s basketball history.

You can look at any number of factors to try and figure out what Tennessee needs to do in order to finally reach that coveted Final Four. You can look at roster construction, coaching style, seeding, scheduling, and philosophy. But one easy way is to use analytics to try and see if there’s a common theme among teams that have made Final Four runs in recent history.

So let’s consult everyone’s favorite statistician: Ken Pomeroy.

I looked at the last 10 NCAA Tournaments (2013-23, minus the 2020 Tournament since there wasn’t one thanks to COVID) to find out if the Final Four participants over the last decade had anything in common, using KenPom’s data as a guide.

Turns out, they do have something in common. Well, a lot of them, anyway.

Let’s start with the Elite Eight, a place the Vols have only reached one time in program history. Over the last 10 NCAA Tournaments, dozens of different teams with varying makeups and philosophies have reached the final weekend of action before the Final Four. And on average, those teams have had more efficient offenses than defenses.

The average offensive efficiency ranking of an Elite Eight team over the last decade is 21st. Of the 80 teams that reached the Elite Eight over the last 10 tournaments, 38 of them had an offensive efficiency ranked inside the top 10 on KenPom, and over three-fourths of them (76.3%) had an offense that ranked inside the top 25.

On the flip side, the average defensive efficiency ranking of teams that made the Elite Eight is 24.7. That’s not drastically different than the average offensive ranking, but consider this: 31 of the 80 teams had a top-10 defense, and 54 of the 80 (67.5%) had a defense ranked inside the top 25.

For Final Four teams, those ratios are relatively similar. The average offensive ranking of the last 40 Final Four teams is 16.9, while the average defensive ranking is 19.9. Of those 40 teams, a little over half (22) had offensive efficiencies that ranked inside the top 10, while just 15 had defensive efficiencies inside the top 10. Only 8 of the 40 Final Four teams over the last decade had an offense that ranked outside the top 25 on KenPom, while 12 had defenses that ranked outside the top 25.

What’s even more telling is the fact that 25 of the last 40 Final Four teams had offenses that ranked higher than their defenses on KenPom. And that’s magnified even more for the teams that go on to win the National Championship, as Mr. Pomeroy himself stated in a tweet shortly after UConn cut down the nets this year.

Now, in some instances we’re kinda just splitting hairs with the data. There have been numerous times where teams that made the Final Four over the last 10 tournaments had an offense and a defense that both ranked in the top 10 or top 25 on KenPom. In fact, as the averages I listed above would suggest, you ideally need to be good on both offense and defense in order to advance far into the NCAA Tournament. There have been obvious exceptions, like St. Peters in 2022 that ranked 231st offensively but 25th defensively, South Carolina in 2017 that ranked 91st offensively but 3rd defensively, or Miami this year that ranked 99th defensively but 6th offensively.

Typically, though, to make it to the Elite Eight or Final Four, you have to be a top-25 team on both sides of the court and don’t usually rely too heavily on one side over the other.

So, what does this mean for the Vols?

Under Rick Barnes, Tennessee has become known for a stifling defense that usually ranks among the best in the country, but their offense can sputter and have deadly cold spells. You don’t need fancy metrics to tell you that; if you’ve watched even just a handful of games over the last 4-5 years, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But the numbers do back that up.

I’m going to do Barnes and Tennessee a favor and not look at the numbers from his first two seasons in Knoxville, as those were rebuilding years. But from the 2017-18 season up till now, the Vols have ranked inside the top 10 in defensive efficiency on KenPom four times, with the only exceptions being the 2019-20 season (that was cut short due to COVID) and the 2018-19 season.

Only once over the last six seasons have the Vols had an offense that ranked in the top 10 on KenPom. And you can probably guess which team that was (yes, it was the 2018-19 team, and they finished 3rd in offensive efficiency that season). In fact, that’s the only time under Barnes that the Vols have even had an offense that ranked in the top 30 on KenPom, with the 2021-22 team (35th) and the 2017-18 team (36th) being the next-highest.

Excluding the 2019-20 team, Barnes’ last five teams that ended up making the NCAA Tournament have had an average offensive ranking of 44.6, while the defense has averaged a ranking of 11.4.

SeasonOffensive RankingDefensive Ranking
2022-2364th1st
2021-2235th3rd
2020-2185th5th
2018-193rd42nd
2017-1836th6th

This isn’t to say that Tennessee can’t or won’t make it to another Elite Eight or the program’s first Final Four under Barnes. There have been multiple teams that have made it to the Elite Eight or made Final Four runs with defenses that are significantly better than their offenses. San Diego State this year is an example, as the Aztecs ranked 4th on defense but 75th on offense. Texas Tech in 2019 made it to the Final Four with the No. 1 defense but an offense that ranked 25th, and Michigan in 2018 finished with the 3rd-best defense but the 35th-ranked offense. Back in 2014, the last time UConn won a national title before this year, the Huskies’ defense ranked 10th while their offense ranked 39th.

But more often than not, teams with offenses that are more efficient than their defenses are the ones more capable of going on deeper NCAA Tournament runs. And under Barnes, the Vols have only fit that criteria one time over the last six years.

Oddly enough, Tennessee’s lone Elite Eight team doesn’t fit into the analytics of the last decade. That 2010 Elite Eight run was fueled by a defense that ranked 11th but an offense that ranked 75th. In fact, it will probably surprise you to learn which Tennessee team was actually the most complete team from an analytical perspective over the last 20 years.

That would be Cuonzo Martin’s 2013-14 Vol squad.

In Cuonzo’s third and final year, the Vols finished 15th in offensive efficiency and 19th in defensive efficiency. Tennessee ran at a slow pace, with a tempo that ranked 313th in the country, but they were highly efficient on both ends of the court. Actually, those rankings are in line with the averages for teams that have made it to the Final Four over the last decade, but Tennessee fell in the Sweet Sixteen that year (thanks partially to a blown charge call, but I digress).

Clearly analytics aren’t everything, because that Vol squad was a Final Four team on paper. But it certainly didn’t play out that way, and that team is more of an exception given the data we have over the last decade.

So, this was a long-winded post that basically boils down to this: In order to make it to another Elite Eight or to the program’s first-ever Final Four, the Vols are likely going to have to up their offensive production and maybe focus a little less on defense. Will Rick Barnes do that? He’s only done it once so far at Tennessee, but that was arguably his best team at UT. While at Texas, Barnes had a better offense than defense nine times in the KenPom era (starting in the 2001-02 season), but only one of those instances came in his last five years as the Longhorns’ head coach.

A team doesn’t have to have a better offense than defense in order to have success in March, but it’s usually better if they do. Maybe the Vols can buck the trend in the coming years, or maybe Barnes will adapt and focus more on the offense.

Either way, let’s just hope Tennessee’s Final Four drought doesn’t continue much longer.

Adding Context to Yet Another March Exit

Hello there. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, so I hope I’m not too rusty.

It’s been a little over two and a half years since I’ve written an article about Tennessee athletics. For those of you who know me, welcome back! I don’t think this will be a regular thing, but I’m grateful for Will Shelton and the Gameday on Rocky Top crew for allowing me the space to write as I please about the Vols. For those of you who have no idea who I am, prepare yourselves. I have a huge passion for writing, and a huge passion for the Vols, specifically both basketball programs. So most of my writing here will be about them.

For my first article in several years, I wanted to take a look at this season for the men’s basketball team and try to add some historical context to try and ease some of the pain, or at least maybe make some more sense of it. Really, I think writing this is just a form a therapy for me, and you all are just along for the ride. But maybe it will help you out, too.

But enough of the introductions. On to why you clicked here in the first place.

***

This season wasn’t a failure, so why does it kinda feel like one?

In what’s become all-too-commonplace for Tennessee’s men’s basketball program, the Vols were bounced before they could reach the Elite Eight last week when they lost 62-55 to FAU.

If you’ve been following Tennessee basketball for more than a decade, this loss may seem like a familiar one to you, though.

This season is just another instance of deja vu for a program that has one Elite Eight to its name. For some reason, though, it feels like I’ve seen a lot more negative reaction to this year’s loss in the NCAA Tournament than I personally think it deserves.

And a lot of that vitriol is aimed squarely at Rick Barnes.

I think it’s fair to criticize Barnes. I’m not a fan of how often he plays two big men on the floor at the same time who aren’t threats to shoot from distance, and I wish he would push pace more with his offenses. I love the tenacity with which his teams play defense, but I desperately want that same aggression to carry over on the offensive side of the ball. Too often, I don’t think Barnes’ offenses attack the rim enough and instead settle for threes or midrange jumpers. The two teams I can think of that did drive to the basket more and were more aggressive were the Grant and Admiral teams from 2017-19, and one of those got dealt bad injury luck in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, and the other was put in arguably the toughest bracket of the entire 2019 tournament.

Barnes deserves critiques. But I think a lot of it has gone too far, and I think a lot of fans either aren’t aware of or have forgotten just how bad the Vols have been in postseason play historically.

Did you know Rick Barnes is only the second head coach in program history to take the Vols to multiple Sweet Sixteens? The only other coach to do so at UT is Bruce Pearl. In fact, Barnes’ 6-5 record in the NCAA Tournament is the second-best record among coaches who made more than one NCAA Tournament at Tennessee (Cuonzo Martin went 3-1 in the NCAA Tournament thanks to that unlikely 2014 run, but that was his only trip in three seasons). He has the second-most NCAA Tournament wins of any Vol head coach, trailing only Bruce Pearl’s eight wins.

Oh, and he also has the program’s only SEC Tournament championship in the last 40 years.

In my opinion, Ray Mears is still the best overall head coach Tennessee’s men’s basketball program has ever had. But the man struggled mightily in the NCAA Tournament. Granted, making the Big Dance was a lot harder back then with a smaller field of teams that got selected, but from 1962-77, Mears led the Vols to just three NCAA Tournament appearances and lost every game he coached in that tournament. He did lead UT to a third-place finish in the NIT in 1969, and the NIT was a bigger deal back then than it is now. But still.

Don DeVoe went 5-6 in the NCAA Tournament with one Sweet Sixteen appearance (which was in 1981, and the Vols received a bye from the first round and only began play in the Round of 32). Jerry Green went 3-4 in the tournament and made it to one Sweet Sixteen.

And that was it before Bruce Pearl took over in 2005. Three head coaches had combined for an 8-14 mark in the NCAA Tournament before the 2005-06 season, and a host of UT head coaches had failed to ever even sniff the NCAA Tournament in that stretch as well. Cliff Wettig (one season between Mears and DeVoe), Wade Houston, Kevin O’Neill, and Buzz Peterson never made it to the NCAA Tournament in their combined 13 years as head coach. In fact, the Vols missed the tournament altogether from 1990-98. That’s almost an entire decade of irrelevance in a sport that’s judged so heavily by postseason results.

Then, Pearl came along and raised the standard. And that’s a good thing. Tennessee as a program should be able to compete for a Sweet Sixteen run year-in and year-out. But I think that Pearl run has maybe skewed expectations for a large group of fans who don’t remember the dark days of UT basketball, which was pretty much the entirety of the late 80s through the early 00s.

A large portion of those fans are ones in my generation, the Millennials. I grew up watching a lot of Tennessee football, but I didn’t really get into UT basketball till the tail end of the Buzzball era, and Pearl entranced me with his showmanship and winning ways.

I think a lot of fans who are now in their 30s (like me) or 40s were in a similar boat back then, and I think it’s mostly this group and fans who are even younger than that who have the most disdain for Barnes’ failures in the postseason.

But when you step back and look at the history of Tennessee’s men’s basketball program, it can seriously be argued that Barnes is the second-most successful postseason coach behind only Pearl. And he’s a controversial foul call away from matching Pearl on the number of Elite Eights with that 2018-19 team.

To me, that says more about Tennessee as a whole than it does Barnes, but that’s precisely my point. Tennessee has just been downright bad in March up until the last 18 years or so.

It’s absolutely fine to want more and better for Tennessee basketball. I certainly do, and I’m not satisfied with just two Sweet Sixteens in the last five years. The Vols could’ve made it that far or further in 2018 and 2022, and one of those Sweet Sixteens could easily have turned into an Elite Eight or Final Four appearance.

But it’s also good to keep perspective, and I think the sting of this most recent loss to FAU will fade with a little time. Especially when you remember the Vols were playing without the heartbeat of their team, Zakai Zeigler, and weren’t at all expected to even make it that far because of that and how the team had been playing to end the regular season and SEC Tournament.

Tennessee used 10 different starting lineups this season and had a full healthy roster for maybe nine of their 36 total games. Two players played the entirety of the 2022-23 campaign: Olivier Nkamhoua and Jahmai Mashack. One of those players was coming off a season-ending injury last year, and the other was largely a role player until later in the season.

Santiago Vescovi missed a handful of games and had a nagging shoulder for parts of the season, Josiah-Jordan James missed a dozen games, Julian Phillips missed four games, and Tyreke Key had to sit out for a handful of games as well. Then Zakai Zeigler suffered his season-ending injury in the second-to-last game of the regular season and missed the final six games of the year.

By all accounts, this team had no business making it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, especially considering they had a historical power standing in their way in the second round.

Yet, they did.

The Vols had some fun and impressive wins this past season, most notably against No. 1 Alabama, then-reigning national champion Kansas, a dominating win over Texas, and a win over Duke in the NCAA Tournament. They also had several disappointing performances in losses to Colorado, Vanderbilt, Florida, and two losses apiece to Kentucky and Missouri.

Ultimately, the season ended in disappointment. But I think a lot of people are holding that too strongly against Barnes when March Madness is such an insane crap shoot, and it’s a miracle any coach has consistent and sustained success in the NCAA Tournament, in my opinion.

Look at Nate Oats, for example. He had the No. 1 overall seed this season and lost in the Sweet 16, the same round his Alabama squad lost in during the 2021 tournament. That team also won the SEC regular season and conference titles like this year’s Alabama squad, yet neither could make it beyond the Sweet Sixteen. Aside from that, Oats has a first-round exit in 2022 while at Alabama and took Buffalo to the NCAA Tournament three times in four years but failed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen while there.

Tony Bennett at Virginia won the national title in 2019 but has two of the most inexplicable losses in the NCAA Tournament on his resume, including the first-ever 1-seed to lose to a 16-seed. In fact, other than that national championship, Bennett hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2017. Virginia has been bounced in the first round in 2018, 2021, and 2023, and they failed to even make the tournament in 2022.

And how about ol’ Bruce Pearl? He made that blistering Final Four run with Auburn in 2019, but he’s failed to get past the second round the three other times he’s taken the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament.

It’s good to want more for the Vols. It’s good to not be satisfied with what the ceiling is perceived to be right now. It’s good to have higher expectations than what history has shown, especially when the head coach’s price tag puts him among the elite of college basketball.

At the same time, it’s good to also keep some perspective and put things into context. The Vols are in good shape under Barnes, and his shortcomings in the postseason at Tennessee aren’t just exclusive to him. He’s just the latest in what has become a painfully long list of UT head coaches who have failed to find that magic in March that so many other programs have discovered.

There’s a reason Tennessee has the fourth-most NCAA Tournament appearances in men’s basketball without ever making a Final Four (25). Only BYU (30), Missouri (29), and Xavier (29) have more. Tennessee has been woefully unlucky and outplayed in March throughout the last 40 or so years. That started well before Barnes took over in 2015.

Luckily, the Vols actually seem to have found some rare stability under Barnes. He just finished his 8th season at the helm, which already ties him with John Mauer for the 5th-longest tenure in Tennessee men’s basketball history. Another three seasons, and Barnes will have been in Knoxville as long as Don DeVoe was.

Tennessee can do better in the postseason. They’ve knocked on the door so many times. One day they’ll finally bust it down.

But for a program littered with so many March failures, it seems a little unfair to place so much blame on Rick Barnes’ shoulders. He isn’t perfect, but he has Tennessee consistently among the top-15 programs year-in and year-out, and winning in March is like winning the lottery; the more chances you get, the better your odds of winning big.

One day, the Vols are going to finally make the Final Four. Maybe it will be under Barnes, and maybe it won’t. Until then, we just have to hope the Vols can keep giving themselves the chances to get there.

Gameday Today: Orange Carpet Day, Peyton Manning, and donuts

It’s Orange Carpet Day on Rocky Top, Peyton Manning’s on campus, and I apparently eat donuts like offensive linemen eat donuts. This and more in today’s link roundup.

Orange Carpet Day

Rocky Top hosts its annual Orange Carpet Day today, and a slew of recruits are on campus to just hang out and have fun. GoVols247 says that there should be as many as 80 players attending, including more than a dozen 4- and 5-star guys ($$$).

SEC Country says that the No. 1 target today is in-state defensive lineman Greg Emerson, a 4-star recruit listed as the No. 6 defensive tackle in this year’s class.

Peyton Manning

Peyton Manning’s in town and on campus. He’s helping to dedicate a new dining facility in Stokely Hall named after friends Carmen and Deborah Tegano. Carmen is associate athletic director, and Deborah was one of Peyton Manning’s professors at UT.

Manning’s also honoring his 2017 Peyton Manning Scholarship recipients Emma Kate Hall, Grace Neiman, Sydney Peay, and Blake Turpin.

And of course, he’s hanging out with the quarterbacks in the quarterback room:

https://twitter.com/vol_football/status/875729750676959232

I’d say it was a good day in the QB room. I’d also say, though, that maybe they should rethink the order of the goat and the orange so that it looks like the goat is eating the orange instead of, well, you know.

The fact that all of this is happening the same weekend as Orange Carpet Day? Pure coincidence, I’m sure.

Other football

Another article with more details supporting our four reasons to be excited about the 2017 season:

Any notion the Vols are lacking in talent simply isn’t factual.

Tennessee’s past four recruiting classes ranked seventh, fourth, 14th and 17th nationally.

There are 32 former four- or five-star prospects on the roster. Two at quarterback and running back, three at wide receiver and four on the offensive line. Seven on the defensive line, six at linebacker and eight in the secondary.

To compete for national championships, you generally want more than half your roster to be 4- or 5-star guys, and Tennessee’s not there, but they’re closer than most think right now.

The strength and conditioning program is apparently starting to produce visible results, and you have to like this balanced attitude from coach Rock Gullickson:

“I like where we’re at, but I’m more excited about where we’re going,” said Gullickson.

That story also includes a video of the team working out, which you might find worth a watch. I didn’t actually try it, but I bet it’s better to the Theme from Rocky. I mean, isn’t everything?

GoVols247‘s latest edition of its weekly What-If Game asks what might have happened if the Vols hadn’t lost the 2001 SEC Championship Game. It’s a painful read, but the included video of Phillip Fulmer’s post-Florida locker room speech is balm for the soul.

Speaking of Fulmer, he had some interesting things to say about the current state of the program in a recent radio appearance with Erik Ainge. The good bits start at around the 5:00 mark:

Hoops

In case you missed it, check out this great video of Rick Barnes watching the NBA Finals with his team.

There’s good reason for Barnes to be smiling. He sincerely believes his team is now poised to take the next step into postseason play.

Other recruiting

New offers:

Other Vols News

After repeatedly touting the new format of the Big Orange Caravan as a less-expensive family friendly venture that won’t charge you $35 for a rubber chicken plate, the school announced that the Nashville stop is limited to 400 pre-registered people who must pay $20 ($12 for kids) for a rubber BBQ plate. The new PR guy must have been outvoted on this one.

Tennessee’s hand-me-downs have surfaced in Israel. I’m a huge fan of adidas over Nike, but those Smokey Grey with Checkered Shoulders unis were sold to us retailers with the promise that the team was going to wear them on the field sometime that season. They were so hideous, though, that they were treated like Christmas sweaters from your Grandma. You know, you smile politely and thank her for her kindness, and then look for the first opportunity to unload them to some poor unfortunate soul in a faraway land.

New baseball coach Tony Vitello thinks he just landed the best pitching coach in the country in Frank Anderson.

Vols track and field phenom Christian Coleman is going pro.

Tennessee freshman golfer Chase Roswall won the 17th Annual Tennessee Match Play Championship yesterday. Follow that link and tell me that picture doesn’t make him look like the caddy from Caddyshack.

The ladies tennis team just signed Elizabeth Profit, who’s transferring to Tennessee after two years at Baylor.

Other fun stuff

This video from the SEC Network has made me realize that I eat donuts like an offensive lineman:

Seriously, that exact conversation takes place at my house on an almost daily basis, except it’s usually about ice cream. I think it’s my 15-year-old, but she thinks its me. Either one or both of us are right. We report, you decide.

Texas is objecting to KISS’ attempt to trademark the horns hand signal. Is it a college football signal that says, “Hook ‘Em Horns?” or is it the sign of the devil? (Or is it both? Ba-dump-bump.) Really, they should just have KISS do the halftime show at a game this fall, and they can share.

Gameday Today: History lessons, accelerators, and brakes

Butch Jones is bringing back the history lessons and trying to find the brake on the Trey Smith hype train. Plus hoops updates and more in today’s Vols link roundup.

Football

I’ll just leave this here:

https://twitter.com/vol_football/status/875442820676411393

And now that your pump is primed, let’s get on with the football news:

Butch Jones is bringing back the Tennessee Football history assignments this fall. Each player has to get up in front of the team and present a little lesson on the guys who have worn their numbers before them. I love this, no joke. 

SEC Country has a great feature on Tennessee commit D’Andre Litaker. That dude has had a rough time of it lately and is somehow managing to keep his head above water.

More praise for the quiet monster on the offensive line, Trey Smith. Jones is doing his best to fight the urge to mash the accelerator instead of the brakes on the Trey Smith hype, but man do we have legit high hopes for this guy.

VFLs

Phillip Fulmer thinks that Jones has made some especially nice tweaks in the offseason:

“The coaching changes give him a great opportunity, and it’s not like this team is coming from nowhere, they had a pretty good season,” Fulmer said. “This can put him over the hump and that’s what everyone wants.

“That’s what Butch is trying to do, to take it to a championship level. The coaching experience he has hired around him is obvious, and it should project on the field.”

Hoops

The NCAA has instituted some new rules changes for the upcoming season, including extending the coach’s box from 28 feet to 38 feet, presumably to make it easier for them to communicate with their team. Except at Vandy, of course, where its insidious court configuration necessitates a satellite phone to reach your players if they’re on the opposite end. “HEAD THREE CLICKS WEST. OVER!”

Other rules changes affect the resetting of the shot clock and the locations of throw-ins.

Injury updates: Graduate-transfer James Daniel III should be back from injury in time for the team’s trip to Europe, and guard Lamonte Turner could also be back. Forward John Fulkerson probably won’t be by then, but Rick Barnes does expect him back in time for preseason practice in October.

Barnes is also excited to finally have the depth to be able to take the governor off the strength and conditioning coach without worrying whether he’ll wear his guys out before the season ends.

And in case you weren’t aware of this fact, Barnes is also a funny and entertaining guy. In discussing the Pilot Rocky Top League, he said:

“That league is so good defensively, I’m going to play,” the 62-year-old Barnes said Sunday.

Baseball

UTSports.com has a compilation of information about all five baseball Vols recently drafted.

Recruiting

Punter Skyler DeLong’s commitment to Tennessee lasted about as long as most high school relationships, as he’s now smitten with Alabama and has given his committed heart to the Evil Empire.

New offers:

Odds and Ends

Athletic Director John Currie has written you a letter on the web, and it has actual links and stuff. Particularly impressive for what has traditionally been a real curmudgeon when it comes to new media.

And shoot, that man is going to totally wear himself out reaching for the prize(s):

“We’re not gonna relax until we win all the championships . . . .”

Currie’s also going to have Neyland Stadium painted over the course of three summers at the same time. I don’t really know why it takes three years, unless they just don’t know that they can rent a paint sprayer at Home Depot.

AND, Currie’s also going to upgrade the stadium’s curb appeal along the river. The man’s going to need a vacation after we win everything while painting. 

Track and field star Christian Coleman is a finalist for The Bowerman Award, given to the top male collegiate track athlete.

Tennessee has golfers at the 17th Annual Tennessee Match Play Championship, and they’re apparently doing well.

That’s it for today. Happy Friday to y’all.

 

 

Gameday Today: CBS thinks the Vols are a good (over/under) bet in 2017

All’s fair in love and officials, CBSSports thinks Tennessee is a good bet, and Derek Barnett’s got good bend. This and more in today’s Vols link roundup.

Hoops

Tennessee basketball leads off today because Rick Barnes is apparently a stickler for honesty — except when it comes to officials. So I guess we can trust him when he tells us fans that power forward Derrick Walker arrived on campus in “better shape than we thought he would be.”

Football

CBSSports’ Tom Fornelli thinks that Tennessee is the best over/under value play for 2017.

Class of 2018 3-star cornerback Jaylon Reed has decommitted from the Vols. 247Sports has a list of Tennessee’s best remaining options at the position. Bob Shoop is excited about his new batch of recruits for this year, at least.

Tennessee has offered a scholarship to Class of 2020 defensive end Samuel Anaele, from Miami, Florida.

Saturday Down South asks whether Tennessee’s passing game could be better in 2017. I’m pretty tired this morning — I’m catching #Predneck fever — so I didn’t actually see an answer, but I do like the question.

All for Tennessee waters the seed, saying that Tennessee’s defensive line is better than people think. The best evidence for this opinion is a junior class that includes Shy Tuttle, Jonathan Kongbo, Kahlil McKenzie, and Kyle Phillips.

And John Adams says that Tennessee shouldn’t have to play Alabama every year. He actually makes some valid points, namely that it makes things much more difficult for Tennessee, but you don’t chuck a 100+-year tradition because of one bad decade.

 

VFLs

Eagles defensive coordinator is loving Derek Barnett’s bend. So what you’re saying is that being able to maintain your balance around a tight corner is maybe more important for a defensive end than a 40-time or a vertical leap? Huh. Who knew?

The Detroit Free Press has a nice feature on VFL Jalen Reeves-Maybin, who’s happy to be injury-free and back on the field.

Miscellaneous fun stuff

Breaking: Lane Kiffin speaks non-inflammatory words, saying there was no reason not to let Tennessee coaches come to his camp.

The headline says that former players (plural) are complaining about the way Tennessee treats them, but the article focuses on a single tweet by a single player. Maybe it’s overblown, but if Penn State does something better than Tennessee, we should fix that, stat.

Tennessee golfers Nolan Ray and Hunter Wolcott qualified for the 111th Southern Amateur Championship, while former Vol AJ Newell tied for fourth place by shooting a six-under 207 through three rounds of the Symetra Tour’s Fuccillo Kia Classic this weekend. 

Tennessee track and field is sending 14 athletes to the NCAA Outdoor Championship from June 7-10 in Eugene, Oregon.