1. Ms. Jack should be proud of her rendition of the Anthem. It was church quality vocals. 2. It's incredibly difficult to win a game where your opponent rebounds half of their own misses. Pitt's ability, especially in the second half, to maintain possession wore UT down. 3. The game got away when Tennessee got stuck at 35 and Pitt made a run to get the lead. The game was going UT's way until then. 4. Trae Golden was asked to do too much tonight. Being responsible for the offense and chasing Ashton Gibbs all night is a greater burden than should have been placed on him. 5. Tennessee isn't going to beat good teams when Jordan McRae goes AWOL. He reverted to the tentative play he exhibited in his limited minutes last season. 6. Pitt is very limited offensively. Unless they catch a draw in the NCAA Tournament where they can just crush their opponents on the offensive boards, their March frustrations will continue. 7. Yemi Makanjuola and Dwight Miller killed Tennessee with their atrocious defense of the high pick and roll. Pitt had a run of of four or five consecutive possessions where they got 8-10 foot jumpers as a result of the inability to handle that action. 8. Great coaching move by Cuonzo Martin to run the man set up to guard the inbounder to double Ashton Gibbs with 10 seconds to go. That resulted in the ball going to Dante Taylor and UT getting a chance to win or tie after the missed free throw. 9. On the other hand, having Skylar McBee in the game instead of Jordan McRae with 3.8 seconds left made little sense. When you are in a chase situation defensively, you need your best athletes on the floor. 10. It was an opportunity missed. Now they need to take the week off and try to get themselves set to run the table from here to the Memphis rematch.
"7. Yemi Makanjuola and Dwight Miller killed Tennessee with their atrocious defense of the high pick and roll. Pitt had a run of of four or five consecutive possessions where they got 8-10 foot jumpers as a result of the inability to handle that action." On the flip side of this point it was a good job by Pitt to keep going to the well on that during that stretch. I thought Tatum had a pretty good all-around game. Still had his customary couple of turnovers, but put in the best effort on the glass by a Vol. It's good that McRae has improved his jumper but it seems like at times he thinks like a jump shooter when he's still really not, and then he forces the action going to the bucket.
I don't think it's anything worth praise. It doesn't take a genius to run a high pick and roll. It's a middle school play, and our young guys simply can not hedge and recover or rotate.
Agree. Kenny Hall had the worst one of the night when he tried to hedge, and they blew by him down the middle.
The offense is at its best when Trae Golden is aggressive as a scorer and passer, but this team simply doesn't have enough shooters to be good offensively. Maymon does a fantastic job of positioning himself to get to the basket. It's not a coincidence he keeps getting easy looks. It's also not a coincidence he keeps missing so many of them. At times he appears to just throw it at the basket.
Solid write up hat. What's your over all opinion of this team/coaching staff to this point? Do you feel they could improve going forward?
They're about where I thought they'd be record wise and the performance has been better than I expected. If the post players can progress and Washpun can improve and play more minutes to spell Golden, they're going to be alright. The SEC, after the top 5 teams, isn't terribly tough. Playing sound basketball can get you to sixth place fairly easily.
This team has confidence and athleticism. That's a heckuva lot better than neither of those things, and will keep you in games longer than your talent allows. They still aren't very good in a lot of ways, but most of the games have been fun to watch. That is a lot more than we can say for some of our other teams.
Couple of questions: 1) Who is on the schedule leading up to the rematch with Memphis on Jan 4th? 2) Related to the first question, have yall or will yall play charlotte again this season? We (Memphis) have them this year and I was wondering how much they have improved/regressed from last season. 3) In sort of unrelated news, We have a tough three game stretch @Miami FL Tues then at home vs Murray St. Sunday then @Louisville Saturday. I know Murray is 9-0 now with a few decent wins but I was wondering how good they really are and what their strongest points are. The Louisville game could be just what we need since they are having a few injury details and we only have a few chances at Marquee wins. Thanks in advance.
A poster here was saying Murray St has a potentially professional-level PG who has been playing inspired ball. Oddly, Louisville might be the most favorable matchup of those three, given their situation.
I agree. The problem with the Louisville game is it is an early tip on the road. We always seem to suck it up then. I hope Murray stays undefeated this week and it will be my first game to attend this year.
1. A game at Charleston is the biggest test. 2. UT doesn't play Charlotte. They are marginally improved. 3. Miami isn't anything special. Murray State is very good. Lousiville is great defensively, not so much on the offensive end.
Thanks. Murray has been tough to gauge considering I havent seen them play and they are a mid major program playing a relatively weak schedule so far. Looking forward to the rematch and hopefully we will have a good showing until then.
Depends on where I get tickets. Trying to pull some strings for good seats right now but Ill let you know how that goes. Im back in school this semester and about to get engaged so I gave up my season tickets this year.
