Shit happens. No game yet has counted in the grand scheme. They're certainly more talented, but that doesn't mean they're better.
Breathe. Get our legs back. It was a good record setting ride, but emotionally and physically can wear on a team not used to the hype.
We won 19 straight. It wasn't going to last forever. We looked like we needed a reset. If getting beat up like that doesn't provide a reset, nothing will. I think we come out swinging.
From my view, that’s a loss that provides a needed opportunity to center the team’s focus. They are a special group, no doubt, but they needed a reset. Not having that target as the #1 team certainly won’t hurt things either.
I’m stupid, on everything, but particularly about basketball. This is well known. I’m asking this honestly, but will be ok if everyone wants to give me shit for doing so - 1. Are Fulk, Pons, Johnson and Walker legit SEC-level players? I’ve seen them each have flashes, but man, it seems few and far between. They each seem like time filler on offense and defense, just to give Williams, Schofield and Alexander a blow. 2. Speaking of Alexander, does anyone else feel like he was playing a lot better early on, than of late (last few weeks)? What’s changed? 3. Teams seem to have picked up on what Mizzou has been doing to deny Grant the ball in the block, and I feel like our only other offense is a Bone drive, or a three, when that happens. 4. Everyone says that this team can win any style of game, be it slow, methodical, half-court sets, or fast, run and gun and transition - but I doubt that latter part, and I fear that Kentucky showed it. I don’t think that this team wants to run, and can. It kills me to see us walk the ball up court 95% of the time, and rarely if ever push the ball. I’m sure there’s many and good reasons for it, but it just seems like we’re not pressuring the defense and giving it time to set up, and maybe sometimes we could. 5. Can someone explain what we’re doing on those offensive sets / plays when Grant has the ball at the top of the key, throwing it down to Alexander, in the block? If we’re throwing it into the block...why isn’t it Grant or Admiral getting it, and why are we throwing it to Alexander, one of the worst offensive players we have, and who seems to be entirely uncomfortable in handling the ball, at all? 6. I hate that #25 for Kentucky. Hate. Hate, hate. I’d have put Derek Walker on that cat and told him to foul out in the first half. He wouldn’t have kept hitting that little trash pump and hope shot. There’s a reason I’m not a coach. 7. Depending on seed / draw / location, I think this team is 50/50 to make the Elite 8, but how they respond to Saturday will obviously affect that. This will go down as one of my all-time favorite Tennessee teams, no matter how this season ends. It’s a testament to both the coaches and players that they’ve made it so easy to forget that we’re only a little more than a year from being picked to finish dead last in the SEC.
1. Fulk is a guy who can play 10-15 minutes a game and do a few things but he’s out of his element against the bigger physical teams. Walker hasn’t gotten it between the ears yet, and this goes for Johnson a bit too. Johnson can shoot it. 2. Yeah he’s been better. Just not being as aggressive lately. 3. We scored 85 against a Frank Martin team with Williams taking 8 shots, and we average about a million assists per game. I think there’s only a few teams that can really affect him that much and he‘s about as effective passing out of a double team as he is scoring 4. UK beat us in a half court game, not a run and gun transition game. 5. Alexander is better offensively than you give him credit, but yeah. 6. I tend to agree, here. Especially with the way they were knocking us around. They’d probably have called fouls on us, but I’d make them 7. The tournament is crazy. One night decides things for everyone. This team could go to the final 4 or go out in round 2, like a bunch of teams
