The Shannon Spake Postgame Report.

1. Great atmosphere at the arena tonight. That's what a basketball crowd should be.
2. I don't fault Jeronne Maymon for turning the ball over eight times. I fault a guy with a seven figure salary leaving an obviously struggling player out there to continue to fail.
3. Armani Moore and AJ Davis have to wonder how they've offended Cuonzo Martin. Their lack of playing time is baffling.
4. Scottie Wilbekin is a straight up warrior. You win with guys like him.
5. Hard to beat a potential Final Four team when you allow them to rebound more than half of their own misses. UT just didn't match Florida's competitive fire.
6. There can't be a team worse in end of half situations than Tennessee. They be better off just holding the ball and trying to run out the clock.
7. Jarnell Stokes was good, not great. He didn't control his space on the defensive boards.
8. Jordan McRae had another on and off night. He has to quit worrying about the officiating and just play.
9. Not sure I've ever seen someone manage to dunk a ball over the shot clock. Congrats, Josh Richardson.
10. The Vols now have little to no margin for error if they want to make the field of 68. I'm not optimistic.

 

I know you think he should be fired, but how likely do you think it is that they will actually fire Martin if we fail to make the tournament this year?

 

What exactly is necessary for us to make the tournament? Win most? Win out? Win out+strong SEC tournament?

 

We are approaching a win out and do well in the tourney, or win the damn tourney scenario.

 

Florida is a really good team, and I had no expectation that we would win this game -- and in fact I bet on Florida -- but we really should have. They shot terrible. They shot 36% from the floor. That's an opportunity that needs to be capitalized on, and that would have been if we were any good at basketball.

 

I don't think we can lose to anyone other than Missouri, and we need to at least split the two games with them. But even they're sub-.500 in the SEC and barely in the RPI top 50, so we may not get another shot at a quality win, unless we last long enough in the SECT to see UF or UK again.

This has NIT (and thus, probably, coaching change) written all over it.

 

Hmm, the more I think about it, it is a win out AND make the finals of the tourney scenario.

 

I'm with those who say even if we don't make the tournament he will be back next season. But I know nothing.

He needs to be fired but as others have said they''ll likely bring in the same, if not worse, caliber coach to replace him.

 

Worse isn't possible. This is Houston type coaching with better players.

 

Wilbekin was the best player on the floor and it wasn't close.

Also, one of the worst renditions of the national anthem i have ever heard.

 

More likely than not.

 

Holding them to 36% doesn't mean much when you let them rebound over half of their own misses.

 

Lunardi still has us in and above the last 4 in as of this morning.

 

Mind blowing.

 

Not really. He's operating on an as-of-right-now basis. I wouldn't think losing to the #3 team in the land would be that catastrophic.

 

I read where Maymon's principal was at the game and passed away pre-game or during. Is this confirmed?

 

There's a lot of talent on this team, and it is being wasted with terrible coaching. We cannot score in the last 3-5 minutes. Good teams and coaches have 1-2 plays that they know will get them 2 points, or at least a good luck. Cuonzo looks like he puts them out there and hopes for the best. He needs to be gone. Unfortunately, I think Hart looks at the effort given tonight, and uses that as a reason to keep Martin one more year, instead of using the entire body of work all season as the reason to fire him.

The quandry of keeping him is do you extend him? If he's kept, you have to extend him so he has leverage to recruit. I think we are stuck with Martin for at least 2 more years.

 

There's no possible way he stays two more years - next year will be just embarrassing sub .500 overall if he's retained.

 

Yep. Almost all of the bracket matrix projections have us in.

But the algorithms aren't going to be as kind after a run of uga, aTm, miss st, vandy, auburn. We still have a little margin for error. Not much. Winning Saturday would probably punch our dance ticket, even with one slip up against the 5 crap teams. But lose Saturday and lose one of those 5, and things get dicey.

 

I thought Jarnell was the best player. Let him go left and he can now score. Shooting with a little confidence. His rebounding wasn't there. He didn't plant Yoing's sorry ass regularly, but he was solid. Those little laser beam jump hooks were funny, but effective.