HOW TENNESSEE BEATS IT

Vanderbilt: it happened!

Well, that was eventful, wasn’t it? After the first half, which I called on Twitter “the worst first half since 37-36,” I was scouring YouTube looking for anything to entertain me, as I was certain the second half was leading to something like a 53-48 win that no one would want to remember.

If only I’d known. Tennessee was terrible from three, unsurprisingly, but in a fairly shocking turn of events, they eschewed missing tons of threes in favor of going to the rim, which we’ve all been begging for since November. Tennessee still took more non-rim twos than attempts at the rim, but they attempted 18 layups or dunks and made 14. That number of makes is their highest since the Florida A&M game on December 4, which feels like a lifetime ago.

I won’t spend too much time dwelling on Vanderbilt’s 0-for-25 performance from three; it feels kind of mean-spirited to do so. That said, Tennessee had a defender within four feet on 16 of Vandy’s 22 catch-and-shoot threes, a phenomenal rate in any game.

I think Tennessee’s defense played a heavy part in the darkest game for Vanderbilt basketball since…I honestly don’t know. Their 50-33 loss to Marist in 2012? The Siena blowout in 2008? Longer?

Please keep going to the rim

For this game, Tennessee should adopt a similar strategy. Ole Miss prefers to not allow many threes in the first place and offers up an atrocious rim defense; a hit rate similar to the 14-of-18 posting against Vanderbilt is very possible here.

The Rebels have been victimized by post-ups all season long, which is certainly music to the ears of John Fulkerson, Yves Pons, and Euro Plastics.

By the way, a super special shoutout to Jordan Bowden, who has finally realized his ability to drive to the rim and score. I’d love to see more of it here.

Open threes should be coming

Outside of the paint, I’d prefer to see if Tennessee can wait to take bunches of threes until Ole Miss goes to the zone. They’ll have more open looks that way, and I know that Santiago Vescovi and Josiah-Jordan James are pretty thrilled by the idea of open looks. Speak it into existence.

Force Ole Miss away from the perimeter and into a bunch of bad shots; also, TOs

Defensively, this comes down to two things: are you going to guard the perimeter well enough to force Ole Miss into a bunch of mid-range twos, and are you going to make those mid-range twos the tougher, longer kind?

In half-court, Ole Miss only attempts shots at the rim 27.4% of the time; they’re pretty successful at them, but Tennessee’s rim defense has been phenomenal against basically everyone so far, so I’m not worried about that.

I am worried, however, about Tennessee giving up a bunch of open 10-footers to guys that can hit them, like KJ Buffen and Breein Tyree.

Tennessee’s got to be careful to not commit too many fouls here, too; the Rebels nearly upset Arkansas because they got 26 free throw attempts and made 25.

Worth noting here is that Ole Miss has struggled with turnovers against various opponents. Breein Tyree rarely commits them, but others – Shuler, Blake Hinson, Austin Crowley, notably – have had serious issues. Tennessee’s got to have their hands out, ready to one-up each other for the team lead in deflections and steals.

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