Tennessee Fails To Live Up To Expectations Again In March, Now The Question Is ‘What’s Next?’ – OutKick
INDIANAPOLIS — We have now talked about this example 1,000,000 occasions during the last variety of years in relation to Tennessee basketball. When are the Vols going to capitalize on the expertise that’s on the roster? This query was a hard-hitter after I would discuss to people across the SEC and each Tennessee fan that…
INDIANAPOLIS — We have now talked about this example 1,000,000 occasions during the last variety of years in relation to Tennessee basketball. When are the Vols going to capitalize on the expertise that’s on the roster? This query was a hard-hitter after I would discuss to people across the SEC and each Tennessee fan that might blow up my mentions. I’d even talk about this over the previous few weeks with my good associates on a weekly radio hit. Now the query turns into even more durable to reply, as a result of I do not know.
This workforce wasn’t overhyped, the best way this workforce carried out during the last two months of the season gave followers hope a run was attainable. However the offensive woes that we witnessed at occasions, with the scoring droughts, lastly caught as much as them after them discovering methods to get round them for a lot of the season.
Faculty basketball is a merciless sport, it’s not for the weak-minded, it may possibly deliver you to your knees and make you hate the sport after an unsettling loss. The worst half about shedding within the NCAA Event is figuring out you may have sufficient expertise to go additional and never figuring out what the long run holds for the present alignment. This feels just like the case for Tennessee, who had been upset on Saturday evening by a gritty Michigan workforce, coached by Juwan Howard.
I might go on for days about how this workforce did not dwell as much as expectations, particularly with a generational kind level guard like Kennedy Chandler attempting to will you to a victory. However you all know the story and watched the way it unfolded this season. There have been occasions throughout the second half of the season that I assumed this workforce might make a future in March, undoubtedly coming off the stellar efficiency in Tampa to win the SEC Event. However perhaps there was a little bit of doubt at all times hanging across the workforce, not due to effort, however due to traits we’ve observed all year long.
The taking pictures drought reared its ugly head once more on Saturday night, with the Vols going over 5 minutes and not using a discipline objective at one level. This isn’t something new, seeing this kind of state of affairs dozens of occasions this season. However more often than not this workforce discovered a strategy to put that within the rear-view mirror and seize a formidable win. not this time although. There have been occasions throughout the season the place Rick Barnes and his workers would discover the best solutions to get them via a troublesome stretch or out of a small gap, however there wasn’t a lot digging that may very well be performed while you shoot 11 p.c from the perimeter.
When the Wolverines went to a zone protection, there have been occasions the place you thought the Vols might drive them again to a man-to-man protection, but it surely nonetheless didn’t impact a lot of the sport plan. Rick Barnes was comfortable to see them change it up on protection, figuring out they’d have success driving the basket.
“You realize, I don’t know they managed the tempo,” Barnes mentioned. “They received drained. We knew it, and we stored attempting to push the tempo. Like somebody requested a couple of zone, we had been glad after they went zone as a result of we knew they weren’t going to remain in it. That was not an element. We knew if we drove it a pair occasions, they might change man to man. What we weren’t capable of do was reap the benefits of it early inside as a result of generally you find yourself with mismatches there.”
The opposite harsh actuality of the place this workforce was offensively all night was what number of attractiveness they had been getting from outdoors the arc. I used to be proper there within the second half, watching Josiah-Jordan James, Santiago Vescovi and Zakai Zeigler put up shot makes an attempt from the nook, however they simply weren’t falling. Name it dangerous luck or settling for photographs, it doesn’t matter. Kennedy Chandler was smoking Michigan defenders via the lane, in some way getting round Hunter Dickinson quite a few occasions, on his strategy to a 19-point sport. But it surely wasn’t sufficient, not in this kind of offense. Normally when Josiah-Jordan James and Chandler are getting within the double-digit level space, the Vols are popping out on prime, however they couldn’t counter the photographs tonight from Michigan.
There may be one space of tonight’s sport plan that stood out to me like a sore thumb and it revolved across the paint manufacturing. All of us witnessed Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Uros Plavsic begin the second half with eight factors mixed within the first three minutes, getting good appears to be like from 5 toes. However then this workforce determined to begin settling for the skin photographs that they had been praying would begin falling. You’ll be able to chalk it as much as the Michigan protection or the best way Tennessee was attempting to assault the basket, scoring six factors within the last 4 minutes, throughout the rim, however lacking six photographs within the last 3:41.
Tennessee by no means appeared snug your complete night on offense, with Kennedy Chandler attending to the basket being the one reply.
So, we get again to the place this program goes from right here and the expectations shifting ahead. They sadly left not less than an Elite 8-type of match on the court docket in Indianapolis tonight. The expertise was there, the momentum main as much as the matchup was there and so they virtually had every thing they wanted to do it. Not having an even bigger put up presence harm this workforce, clearly. Having watched groups like Auburn and Kentucky discover success throughout the season with a real massive man, whereas working a tempo offense, needs to be one thing this program strives for going ahead. Gamers like Jonas Aidoo and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield have a pleasant trying future forward, however it could’ve been good for this workforce in the event that they had been capable of contribute a bit extra.
Now comes the laborious query, which is “What’s Subsequent?” for this system. You’ll lose Kennedy Chandler most definitely, the sixth-year senior John Fulkerson is completed. (He was a lot enjoyable to cowl.) Additionally, who decides to search for extra taking part in time some place else? These are the roster questions, the addition of BJ Edwards will assist Zakai Zeigler subsequent season and also you pray that Josiah-Jordan James comes again.
As a program, a second-round exit from the match is just not assembly expectations, interval. Having the entry to this kind of expertise on the guard place and even on the 4 with James, is one thing that doesn’t need to be wasted. Rick Barnes can even be changing assistant coach Mike Schwartz over the subsequent week or so. Sitting right here trying on the Tennessee basketball program, proper after a season-ending loss, there are a bunch of areas this workforce should enhance at as a bunch shifting ahead. However, there shall be expertise and that’s a constructive shifting ahead, as a lot because it stings proper now to lose.
However I’m additionally bored with listening to this workforce has the juice to make a future within the Event, for it to solely run off the tracks in the identical metropolis as final season. I don’t know what the reply is and I gained’t act like I do, however successful the SEC Event will solely go up to now with the fan base, in the event you aren’t getting out of the primary weekend of the NCAA Event.
Now we undergo one other offseason questioning “What If and What’s Subsequent” for Tennessee. Having to reply these questions the previous variety of years has received to be getting outdated.
However, we’ll be right here ready to see what Barnes can do subsequent season, similar to we had been round this time final 12 months in Indianapolis.