The best season in Tennessee basketball history

As we sit here and wait for the Final Four– the first one ever with all four #1 seeds– it’s understandable to feel some regrets, some heartbreak, and some disappointment. Many of us thought we would be there, in San Antonio, watching our Vols play for a national championship. Was that an unreachable goal? Were our hopes too high? I don’t think so. We could have done it.

There has much gnashing of teeth over the fact that Davidson has now made an Elite Eight and we still have not (and a reader has pointed out that this is not even Davidson’s first time in the E8). Of course, you have to remember that just a couple of years ago, George Mason made a Final Four. These things happen. Congrats to George Mason and to Davidson for their accomplishments. It has exactly zero to do with Tennessee.

Here’s the part where I’m supposed to give you the bottom line on why this season was a tremendous success, and why the fanbase is being so unreasonably critical of our failure to escape the Sweet Sixteen. But there are really a lot of bottom lines. The list of accomplishments is too long, the achievements too many, and my pride too deep to sum it up in a sentence. So, in no particular order, this is what the 2007-2008 basketball season brought us:

• Two more wins over Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators. In the last three years we are 5-1 against one of the country’s top programs and top coaches.
• We split with Kentucky, leaving us 3-3 in the Pearl era. This seemed like a disappointment at the time, but UT basketball fans have spent decades longing to be even with Kentucky. We’ve got it. Enjoy it.
• The Vols improved to 2-1 vs. Memphis, another of the country’s top programs over the last three years. We’re the only team to beat them so far, and we did it @FedEx when they were unbeaten and ranked #1.
• We beat Elite Eights Xavier in Cincinnati and West Virginia on a neutral floor (it’s about now I say “I told you so” about WVU).
• We finished the SEC with a 14-2 record, including going 6-0 against the SEC West.
• Chris Lofton won his 7th SEC Player of the Week honor. Nobody else in SEC history has won that many.
• The Vols had four different players named as Player of the Week (Lofton, JaJuan Smith, Tyler Smith, J.P. Prince). In addition, Brian Williams won a Freshman of the Week honor.
• Chris Lofton became the SEC’s all-time leading three point shooter.
• Tennessee won 31 games, which is an all-time high for wins. The previous high was 26. In Bruce Pearl’s three seasons as head coach, the Vols have won 22, 24, and 31 games. That’s 3 of the top 4 totals in UT history, and it’s been against some of the most challenging schedules.
• The Vols were ranked #1 in the country for the first time ever. Prior to this season, #4 was the highest ranking achieved by any UT team.
• The Vols have won an NCAA tourney game for the third year in a row, and have won 5 games in 3 years. No UT coach has ever won more NCAA tourney games, and Bruce is the only one with a winning record in the tournament.
• The Vols won their first outright SEC title in 41 years.

So, what say ye? Not much of a season, right? Sure, 8 teams had a better tournament appearance. Said another way, only 8 teams had a better tourney appearance. You can see from several of the points above that UT doesn’t exactly have a sparkling history in the sport and especially not in the tournament. We should feel very, very happy and proud of what this team has accomplished. And as long as Bruce Pearl is here, there is always more waiting around the corner.

A season (and senior class) that will not soon be forgotten

Although we are all a bit disappointed this morning, luckily our bloggers are keeping their eyes on the big picture. Here are some great posts written in the last 10 hours or so, thanking Bruce and Company for the joy they brought us this year and the two before it.

• BasketVols: The Joy of Disappointment, by lawvol at Gate 21
• Open letter to Chris Lofton, JaJuan Smith, and Jordan Howell, by B Dub at Confessions of a Worshipper (not a Vol blog, really, but this post is a great contribution to the Volblogosphere).
• Standing O for the Tennessee Volunteers: Thanks for a great season, by Joel at Rocky Top Talk

But yes, the disappointment is still there.

• Crapola, by Fulmer’s Belly
• Even the Hat can’t help the hurt: a live-blog of season-ending misery, by ghostofneyland at Third Saturday in Blogtober

There will be more from me later to wrap the season up, but take the time to check out these posts.

Louisville 79, Tennessee 60

Well that sucked. Its hard to see the season end that way, with one of the worst games we’ve played of the year. You all watched it, so I don’t have to talk about what horrible, uninspired play it was. Here are some stats that you just can’t win with:

• 33.9% FGs
• 5-20 on threes
• 14-36 on twos (!)
• 3-15 shooting by Chris Lofton
• 52% FG defense
• 12 assists / 17 TOs
• Had 7 shots blocked
• Outrebounded 43-28
• 30 FT attempts for Louisville

The team just looked mentally exhausted to me. They just weren’t ever really in it except for 3-4 minute spurts a couple of times. I think a long, successful season just wore them down. They seemed to be done, in some sense, after Memphis. Tennessee was 25-2 after we beat Memphis and went to #1, and just 6-3 since.

I’m still proud of this team and they accomplished a lot. This team, this year, just wasn’t ready to take it one more step. In the next few years, maybe we’ll be ready. The talent is coming in and the coaching and support is there (though if you read some message boards, you’d think last night doomed the program to failure somehow). We’ll be fine. After all, this team was 31-5, SEC Champs, and in the Sweet 16 for the 2nd year in a row. Nothing to sneeze at. We should be proud and so should the players and coaches. I just wish they hadn’t run out of gas.

NCAA Tourney, Day 5: BruceBall vs. Louisville Live Blog

9:30: The early game is already over, so it looks like we may actually tip on time. Excellent.

9:48: 10 minutes until tip. I’m nervous and excited and ready for this game to finally tip. I hope we bring it tonight.

9:59: Here we go. GO BIG ORANGE!

10:00: What a cheapie on Wayne. Crap!

10:01: Another on Wayne. Jeez. That sucks.

10:04: My screen just froze. How did we get to the TV timeout?

10:06: D has been okay except for the fouls. Need to keep it up.

10:08: Crappy D the last 2 possessions, and 5 points given up.

10:09: We need to start hitting our threes. Also, bad job by Prince getting back.

10:12: Nice play by JaJuan. Hit these, Tyler. Both teams are a little sloppy so far.

10:17: L’ville is hitting threes and we aren’t. We need to turn that crap around.

10:19: Bilas is right. Too much contact for no foul, especially when they’ve called ticky tack crap.

10:21: Are they ever going to call another foul on Lville? That’s about 4 possessions in a row.

10:23: Okay, JP. How about never doing that again. Also, we have a commercial break, then one play, then another break?

10:27: Terrible defense. JP Prince needs to sit.

10:28: That’s about the worst 5 minutes we’ve played all year. Bad defense, bad offense. We look scared.

10:30: Finally a three. Need to see more of that and much better D.

10:31: WOW that pass was a beaut. Signs of life? I hope so. Let’s go VOLS!

10:35: Offense looking better, but got beat bad on the press that time.

10:37: Tyler is really working hard. Getting back in this game now. Keep up the D.

10:38: Lucky bastards.

10:39: What was that, Wayne?

10:40: That charge call was crap. Padgett was clearly moving.

10:41: Down to 7. Let’s go VOLS.

10:42: DAMMIT RAMAR!

10:43: Way to make up for it, Ramar!!! AND ONE!!!

10:44: Sigh.

10:48: Is it just me, or was that 10% of the contact that we’ve seen on a bunch of no calls in this game? Very irritating officiating.

10:49: There we go! Life again! JaJuan, keep knocking down those threes.

10:51: Pearl has to grab that ball. Also, Louisville is hitting FTs well above their average right now.

10:52: Jeez, JaJuan! He wasn’t even trying to make a move, why did he need to carry?

10:53: Attaboy, Chris. Now we need a stop to finish the half.

10:55: Crap. Well, at least we’re within single digits. We need to play a whole lot better though.

11:13: Here we go. Come on, Vols. You can do this. Just need to put together a good half defensively and hit some shots.

11:16: Need to rebound better too.

11:18: J.P. please. STOP DOING THAT!

11:19: Here we go! Keep it up, Vols!

11:25: Chris just has nothing right now. And that was bad transition defense, but a great play by Duke! Nice!

11:29: Did Wayne even touch him????? What a crap call. Crappy defense too.

11:31: We’ve gone braindead again. What are we doing?

11:36: Tyler, that foul was just stupid. We’ve lost all that momentum we had. Sigh.

11:38: Come on D.

11:42: There’s still a lot of time left. We need to hit a few shots and play D.

11:44: Come on Vols. The game is still there for the taking.

11:45: Chris is just ice cold. This is hard to watch.

11:49: We’re just not playing like we want it right now. We have GOT to score. MONEY! RIGHT ON CUE!

11:56: If a run is to be made, it needs to be now. Come on Vols.

12:00: We have to stop fouling. We are in so much foul trouble and we keep giving them points. Missed both that time though.

12:01: Another foul, more FTs.

12:06: We’re only half there at this point. I’m going to stop blogging and regroup to talk about this tomorrow. Goodnight, Vols.

NCAA Tourney, Day 5

7:13: WVU and Xavier. I don’t think I have a rooting interest in this game, so I’m just pulling for a good one.

7:15: 8-0 Xavier run to start the game. WVU looks a little lost.

7:27: And now we switch over to UNC-Wazzou. Obviously I think we should pull for Washington State, and I think they have a chance. They are to UNC what Butler is to us; a tempo change that could throw the Tarheels off.

7:33: UNC has been able to force tempo so far. The Cougars need to settle down and try to bring the pace to a screeching halt.

7:41: They’ve succeeded now. UNC has 8 points in 7 minutes. They’re bound to be frustrated.

7:43: Nothing is coming easy for UNC. This has been good work by Wazzou so far.

7:56: What an ugly, physical game. It will be really interesting to see what kind of adjustments are made at halftime. Hansbrough has been a non-factor.

8:04: 32-25 Xavier at halftime. WVU has battled back furiously.

8:05: That was a big bucket for Wazzou. UNC is threatening to pull away. And there’s another three . . . WSU has to do better offensively.

8:12: UNC is just making some tough pullup jumpers, and Wazzou can’t buy one. This is a little frustrating to watch.

8:27: West Virginia is looking good. If they had hit any threes this game might be tied.

8:36: WVU finally hit a three but Xavier has been hurting them inside a bit. We have a ballgame though. I hope Wazzou can make a similar comeback against UNC.

8:41: UNC-Wazzou isn’t close enough for my local station to stay with. We’ve got Xavier-WVU now. Joe Alexander is starting to heat up.

8:52: WVU just took the lead. Great effort in the 2nd half.

8:55: UNC is up 20 now, 47-27. So much for being frustrated with the slow tempo. Either UNC is playing great D or Wazzou just can’t get anything going. Either way, looks like the Heels are going to breeze into the Elite 8.

9:16: Great game! Xavier can put it away on this possession but it’s been a back and forth game this whole half.

9:24: What a play by Alexander, but couldn’t knock down the FT. That could have been ballgame.

9:27: Alexander fouls out. Ouch.

9:36: WVU has had some big FT misses late in this game. They’re outplaying Xavier right now though. WOW! Big shot by Lavender though.

9:42: Holy crap, what a mistake by WVU. They left a wide open shooter with 2 secs on the shot clock, and now it’s a 2-possession game. Unbelievable.

9:46: A few free throws and this one is over. A great effort by both teams, but WVU had some key mistakes and FT misses late.

A little live blogging tonight

I’ll be around during the UNC-Wazzou game, making the occasional comment, and will be posting a little more during our late game. Join me as we beat Slick Rick right out of his Armani.

Sweet Sixteen preview, part II: BruceBall vs. Louisville

Tennessee’s basketball Vols come into the Sweet 16 with a pretty scary matchup ahead of them. As I discussed before, Louisville’s defense is very strong, and will be a very difficult test for a BruceBall offense that has been limping a bit so far in the tournament. So what does this mean in the grand scheme?

Louisville is easily the best and most talented team the Vols have faced so far in the tournament, and they also have a great coach in Rick Pitino. The talking heads seem to favor the Cardinals, and Vegas agrees, setting the line at Louisville by 2 1/2. So what is Louisville bringing?

Who they’ve got:  Louisville is led by 6′11″ senior center David Padgett, who averages 11.4 points and 4.5 rebounds in 23 minutes per game. Many of the Cardinals’ early losses were a direct result of losing Padgett’s services due to injury. Since his return, Louisville has been playing better basketball and has been winning the games they couldn’t earlier in the year. Padgett is the Cardinals’ most efficient offensive player, with an O-rating of 124.0. He shoots an astounding 68% on field goals.

Interestingly, Padgett, at just 11.4 PPG, is Louisville’s leading scorer. The Cardinals’ scoring is extremely balanced, with eight players averaging between 6.4 and 11.4 points. Terrence Williams (96.9 O-rating, 11 PPG, 7.3 RPG), Earl Clark (98.6 O-rating, 10.9 PPG, 8.0 RPG) , and Jerry Smith (114.9 O-rating, 10.5 PPG) are also top scorers for Louisville. Derrick Caracter (100.4 O-rating, 8.5PPG), Edgar Sosa (98.7 O-rating, 7.6 PPG), Andre McGee (113.3 O-rating, 6.4 PPG), and Juan Palacios (102.5 O-rating, 6.4 PPG) are key contributors, and freshman Preston Knowles (118.5 O-rating, 2.4 PPG) is a very efficient option off the bench but does not score much.

Several of these Cardinals are solid perimeter shooters (McGee 40.9%, Smith 36.8%, Sosa 36.4%, Williams 34.2%) and can help Louisville open up the inside for Clark, Caracter, Palacios, and Padgett.

Where Louisville excels: Defensively the Cardinals are strong all around, forcing opponents to a low FG%, grabbing steals, and swatting shots. Offensively the Cards do most of their damage on the interior, shooting 53% on 2-point field goals. They are also reasonably strong from the perimeter, ranking 100th nationally in 3-point FG% at 35.2%. They avoid blocked shots (85th) and steals (37) pretty well.

Where Louisville is vulnerable: Usually I call this “struggling” but at this stage in the competition there’s not a lot of struggling. Offensively Louisville does turn the ball over, ranking 99th in TO rate. Likewise, they don’t force many TOs on defense, ranking 156th. This is interesting considering they are top 40 in both steals and avoiding steals.

They do have a problem at the free throw line in several ways. First, they put opponents at the stripe too often (239th). On their end, they don’t get to the line a lot (100th), and when they get there they don’t hit with a high percentage (64.4%, 304th nationally). They are actually worse at free throws than Tennessee, but you never hear this for some reason.

While the Cardinals are a solid defensive rebounding team (78th) they don’t get many offensive rebounds (148th), so not as many 2nd chance points as you might expect from a team that is strong in the paint.

Gameplan and style: Louisville is deep and can run, though overall their tempo is just average (161st). They will press in the fullcourt to force the opponent to rush in the halfcourt, which is a bit of a philosophical change for Pitino. In the past he has pressed to force more turnovers than UL currently does. Even though they are stronger in the inside, they will take a lot of threes (65th nationally), so perhaps this is an area of weakness that the Vols can exploit; make them shoot contested threes instead of working the paint and perhaps they will be less efficient.

They say pressing teams don’t like to be pressed; I don’t know if this is really true or not, but if it is you can expect a lot of mistakes from both teams, as both like to press. Tennessee has been more mistake prone lately, coughing the ball up too many times in the SEC tournament and against American and Butler. This, coupled with a relatively new PG in J.P. Prince, should be an area of concern for Tennessee going up against a fullcourt press.

Defensively we will lean heavily on Wayne Chism to slow down Padgett, so hopefully he can keep his fouls in check so he can play 30 minutes. Brian Williams is the only Vol that has the height to match Padgett, and will likely draw the assignment when Wayne is resting. This will be a key area of the game to watch. On the perimeter I expect to see the Vols swap defenders often, keeping fresh legs on Louisville’s athletic perimeter players.

I would expect Pitino to dedicate a lot of attention to Chris Lofton.  Depite recent struggles, Lofton is the most dangerous player on the Vol roster and he can explode for 30 if he is not covered up. If he is defended well, the Vols will have to capitalize on a lack of help defense, getting good looks for JaJuan Smith and hopefully some efficient play in the paint. Tyler and Wayne will be key players all-around in this game.

How it will play out: Tough call. Tennessee has not been playing its best basketball the last couple of weeks, but we all know that when the competition is tough, the Vols under Coach Pearl tend to step up their game. Louisville has been playing extremely well, including a blowout of the overseeded Oklahoma Sooners in round 2. It’s easy to assume that Louisville has the momentum, and most would tell you they have a talent and coaching edge as well.

But you can never count out our boys in Big Orange. They are a #2 seed for a reason, and have away from home several times this season to play tough competition and emerged victors. In fact, there are five Sweet Sixteen teams that the Vols played this year (West Virginia, Xavier, Texas, Memphis, Western Kentucky) , none at home– and Tennessee beat four of the five. The ability is there, and Bruce just has to find a way to draw it out. Do that and these Vols will make Tennessee history as the first to advance beyond the Sweet Sixteen to the Elite Eight.

Will that happen? I’ve got a good feeling that Tennessee is going to play one of its best games of the year. It’s just a gut feeling, of course, but Pearl’s teams have tended to step up– big time– when all the world says they are overmatched. They’ve won a lot of games the last three years that they weren’t supposed to, and many seem to feel they shouldn’t win tomorrow. I think they will play well. I think Chris Lofton is finally going to get untracked again, with a new arena to shoot in, and I think Tyler Smith and J.P. Prince are going to play more efficiently than they did with 13 turnovers against Butler. With a real achievement (back-to-back Sweet Sixteens) under their belt, I think the Vols relax a bit and get back to playing their game. They’ll pressure Louisville defensively and get to run a little, and I think their ability to score off of mistakes will be the key to the game. My prediction: Vols 84, Cardinals 81. Welcome to the Elite Eight.

Sweet Sixteen preview, part I: Cardinal defense

As the Vols prepare for the Sweet Sixteen, the Louisville defense has to be a preparation and film study priority. Louisville is ranked #7 in pythag, largely because of its 5th-ranked defense. Tennessee will have to work hard to score consistently on offense.

Here’s a rundown of the Cardinal defense’s vital stats:

• adjusted efficiency: 84.2 PP100 (5th in NCAA)
• eFG% allowed: 43.8 (7th)
• turnover %: 21.2 (156th)
• defensive rebounding rate: 69.4% (77th)
• free throw rate allowed: 33.0 (99th)
• 3pt FG% allowed: 30.7 (13th)
• 2pt FG% allowed: 42.6 (13th)
• block rate: 13.5% (26th)
• steal rate: 12.1% (39th)
• Two guards in top 500 in steals: Jerry Smith (107th), Andre McGee (209th)
• Two forwards in top 500 in blocks: Earl Clark (118th), Derrick Caracter (137th). David Padgett would also be on this list with more minutes played.

When I was looking back at UT’s previous opponents, what I found interesting was how similar this Louisville defense is, statistically, to Memphis. The Tiger D is 3rd overall, highly ranked in shooting defense (5th in eFG), top 40 in steals but average overall in forced TOs (98th), strong in shotblocking as a team and primarily with three post players, and strong against both the 2-point and 3-point shot. Memphis is a bit better in a few areas, such as rebounding, but overall the two defenses are very comparable. Both press in the fullcourt some and like to pressure the basketball in the halfcourt.

To make a long story short (too late), the Vols have already prepared for a defense that would remind you a lot of Louisville’s, in style and ability. I have to think this would be an advantage, especially considering the Vols had a reasonably decent game against that defense (98.4 PP100).

In fact, the Vols have played 6 of the top 31 defenses this season, beating Memphis (3rd), Mississippi State (16th), West Virginia (21st), Ohio State (23rd), and Xavier (26th) while losing only to 31st-ranked Texas. So it’s encouraging that Tennessee has faced some excellent defenses already, and that they managed to do enough to win against 5 of the 6.

What’s discouraging is that in the last two games, Tennessee has not been especially sound offensively, turning the ball over on more than 20% of possessions in each and scoring a very average 148 points in 135 possessions. That kind of effort is not going to cut it against a team as strong defensively as Louisville is. Butler is a decent defensive team (49th) so some struggles are justified, but American is not a good defensive team (216th) and the Vols have just been out of sync.

Some progress was made (outside of the turnovers) against Butler, but the missing piece of the puzzle (perimeter shots) was still pretty quiet. To beat Louisville we are going to need more out of Lofton and JaJuan Smith, and more of the same production from Chism, Prince, and Tyler Smith– without the 16 combined turnovers.

In fact, those three players were the keys against Memphis, scoring a combined 42 points. The same was true against Xavier, with Tyler, Wayne, and JP scoring 47 points. Good performances out of them would go a long way toward beating the Cardinals, though it would sure make things easier if Chris and JaJuan could open it up a bit. That’s what the Vols got in the other four games against top defenses, with Chris and JaJuan leading the way in scoring in each.

What every Vol fan would like to see against Louisville is a combination of the two, with JaJuan and Chris lighting up the perimeter and opening the lane up for big games from our bigger guys. Whether we are able to regain our offensive form and put together a game like that remains to be seen.

Contrary to popular belief, defense was pretty good again

I’m scanning Hoopsville and I see several times how we played poor defense against Butler. The same was said by some after American. It seems to me that people simply aren’t paying enough attention.

The efficiency in the Butler game was 92.2. That’s not amazing defense but it’s solid (consider that the average is about 100). We held them to 36% FG shooting and didn’t get totally hammered by threes (though they did shoot a solid 34.6%). This is two games in a row that the D has been good enough to win ANY game. Under 100 and a good offensive team should win, and hey– we did win both games.

I’m just baffled by how many times I’ve seen our D criticized this weekend. It just hasn’t been a problem. Our offense (and vs. American our rebounding) has been a bit subpar and that is why we’ve struggled. Defensively we’re doing pretty well.

Oh well. A win is a win is a win in the NCAA tourney and I’ll take this one no matter what people are complaining about.

SURVIVE AND ADVANCE

It wasn’t easy to watch at times, but the Vols picked up win #31 today, grinding out a 76-71 overtime win over Butler. We were periodically sloppy and made some mistakes, but the defense was decent and we made enough plays with the ball to win.

J.P. played some decent PG for most of the game, but made a couple of ugly mistakes late and Ramar was given the keys again. Ramar answered the call and played very well in OT, so hopefully this change was of benefit to everyone. We got more plays out of that position than we have been.

Regardless, this was a matchup nightmare for the Vols but they managed to take it home anyway and are headed to their second consecutive Sweet Sixteen to face the winner of Louisville vs. Oklahoma. GO BIG ORANGE!!!