Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="EricLA, post: 4421731, member: 26"] You, and most every other sane WCBB fan. The pre-season pollsters went bananas over the "pieces" Tennessee added. Getting Jackson and the rest suddenly vaulted them to a NC contender and 1 seed. And UCONN was dropped to a 3-seed. The funny thing is that UCONN has more talent on their roster based on rankings coming out of HS than Tenn (AFTER season ending injuries to Paige and Ice), and it's not really close. But it's why you play the games. After the game (it was on the BTN), they listed 5 teams who could win the NC. SC, Stanford, Tennessee, Iowa State, and 1 other I forget. It was comical. I missed the 1st half and watched the 2nd half. Tenn is the same old Tennessee. Athletic, crash the boards, 1 on 1 offense (Jaz Walker had some nice moves, but the amount of offense that was played, or lack of it, was shocking). It was great to see the meltdown - and then the frantic full court press for the last 4 minutes or so. Some are like "but they have so much talent - they will get it as the season progresses". Really? Certainly you can work on things over the course of the season, but the summer and 2 months you have PRE-SEASON is where you really set the table for what your team will do for the year. Once the season starts, you have classes, travel for games, mixing up game plans for the next game, watching film, etc. You can certainly work on things and improve, but teaching offense from scratch will simply not happen (IMHO). Tennessee will certainly win some games this year. Probably percolate around the top 15. But against an experience team who has good chemistry and has played together for a few years - they will struggle. It would be different if they added in 1 or 2 uber-transfers. Like UCONN adding in Lou. But UCONN is "only" working in 3 new players now. 1 will likely start. Tennessee is working in like 5 or so new players. And 1 is the starting PG. No bueno. Just my $.02... I will say I was impressed with Walker - altho all 1 on 1 play and not much of a PG facilitator, and Key is quite good. I would expect tOSU to jump to 7 or 8 and Tennessee to drop to 8 or 9. It's not like they lost to an unranked team. On the other hand, the lead got up to 20 and the game wasn't as close as the 12 point MOV so maybe they drop to 10 or fall just out. We will see soon enough. Bottom line, the loss was indeed like an early Christmas present. So fun and pretty and nice to see!! [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,461

Messages: 4,397,079

Members: 10,209

Latest member: noelle