HOW TENNESSEE BEATS IT

Get creative with how you get to the rim; it’s more fun that way

During our most trying times, we need to focus on the positives in life. It is no small feat to achieve this; many of us face desperate challenges with frightening consequences every day of our lives. By this measure, whining about a basketball team’s shot selection should fall somewhere around the bottom 0.000001% of our complaints. I already gave my piece on this in the LSU preview, so I’m not going to rehash it. Just rest easy knowing that most of those complaints still ring true, particularly with Jordan Bowden’s horrific shot selection in said relevant game.

This time out, we’ll focus on what Tennessee can do at this point of time. In terms of scoring in the paint, we know that they can do so, and they did with some amount of success in Saturday’s game. They’ve also done it well enough against non-LSU opponents; while Tennessee barely ranks above the national average in terms of finishing at the rim, they did rank higher prior to Saturday than they do now. Notable stat: John Fulkerson and Olivier Nkamhoua 5-of-6 at the rim, everyone else 1-of-9.

As mentioned, Missouri doesn’t give up a ton of easy points inside the perimeter. However, they’ve struggled with mobile options out of the pick-and-roll, and Tennessee could accomplish this via a few different ways. All of Fulkerson, Yves Pons, and Nkamhoua have shown flashes of success in ball-screen sets, and it’s plausible that Santiago Vescovi could help elevate Tennessee’s otherwise-horrid ball-handler results.

Likewise, Tennessee could and should use cuts and post-ups to find the shots of their liking.

I’m spending zero time discussing the mid-range looks because of self-care.

VESCOVI (and also other guys)

On the perimeter, Santiago Vescovi. Man, can he shoot!

We’ll talk about Tennessee’s team-wide excellent three-point regression in a second, but this guy – who, again, literally walked into the University of Tennessee like a week ago – is awesome. Vescovi went 6-for-9 from three, all makes out of spot-up situations, though he was unafraid to pull up off of a ball screen.

Immediately, Vescovi presents gravity that no other player on Tennessee possesses. He found open looks for Yves Pons and others by drawing attention to himself; I genuinely cannot wait to see how it unfolds for him the rest of the way.

Tennessee shot 13-of-26 on Saturday, which was kind of fluky, but they’ve been well overdue for a little positive regression for a while now. I think you’ll see more 35%ish performances coming forward instead of the 20-25% ones that had become standard.

Interior defense needs to remain as solid as possible

Missouri’s only high-end shooting quality they’ve got is an ability to score at the rim. They don’t do it as often as I, the viewer, would like, but it’s a pretty solid hit rate. I said that Tennessee would need to hold LSU to <50% from two, which they did – 46.2%, their second-worst rate of the year.

Unfortunately, I did not anticipate a shot volume domination by the Tigers and probably their best game of the year from downtown. Clearly, Tennessee’s still an excellent two-point defense, and they’re blocking more than enough shots to make it look like a real, sustainable thing.

They’ll have to be at their very best to win this game, especially in the post and in ball-screen sets.

Perimeter defense is fine, promise

Here’s a stat that may actually shock you: this is the best three-point prevention (NOT efficiency) defense Tennessee’s possessed since the Cuonzo years. They’ve actually managed to keep the same low Assist Rate from those seasons (meaning they’re forcing opponents to score more one-on-one baskets, which generally leads to a slightly better defensive efficiency) while pairing it with a defense that’s 29th-best in opponent 3PA%. Tennessee’s been unlucky on three-point defense, as anyone with a brain could’ve guessed, I’m sure.

(Quick overarching statement on three-point defense: Last year, Tennessee gave up their second-highest rate of three-point attempts in school history, which is why they kept giving up lots of threes. This year, they’re at their fourth-lowest since 1999-2000. The easiest way to prevent losing by threes: prevent the threes in the first place.) Here’s hoping that regresses against a very mediocre three-point team.

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