HOW TENNESSEE BEATS IT

You do the same stuff that worked last time, such as attacking the rim

Last time, the scout worked pretty easily and came to fruition. Tennessee got 19 layup/dunk attempts, converted 13 of them, rebounded about 37% of their misses, and got 30 free throw attempts. It was merely icing on the cake that they converted 24 of them, to be honest. I would prefer to think about this game as it keeps me from remembering that a game happened on Saturday that was far, far less satisfying than this game was.

Anyway, Tennessee should pretty obviously spend the vast majority of their time on offense finding ways to drive, cut, or post-up their way to an attempt within a few feet of the rim.

It worked last time, and coupled with the fact eight of the last nine Arkansas opponents have made 50% or more of their twos, it seems very easy to do.

Anyway, they’ve got to attack quickly and make Arkansas sweat. Plus, Tennessee can use this time to attack the boards and draw fouls; this is the way to beat Arkansas in a game where they’re likely to shoot a little better than the Vols.

Mid-range or non-rim two-point attempts, at this point, should be publicly flogged and shamed unless they are coming from one of the following three players: John Fulkerson, Jordan Bowden, or Yves Pons. All three are hitting 42% or better on these looks.

Anyone else: please don’t do it.

Again, the threes are worth taking

Obviously, Arkansas ranking #1 in the nation in 3PT% allowed is going to get a ton of run on the broadcast. Whether the broadcasters will mention the studies that show 3PT% allowed is largely out of the hands of the defense, we’ll see. (They won’t. They never do.) It’s obviously hard to see what statistically works against the Arkansas perimeter defense when basically nothing has this year, but it does seem they’ve had struggles containing threes developing from the post at times, as well as plays developing in transition.

Force Arkansas to finish through contact

Defensively, this is going to be a nice respite from playing a stretch of teams that were/are good at offensive rebounding. Arkansas doesn’t crash the boards hard at all for the most part, both as a system decision and because of height limits. Tennessee can own this and focus more on closing out hard in the paint, forcing Arkansas to finish through contact.

To be honest, I actually thought Tennessee did a decent job of this against Auburn…but Auburn rebounded nearly 40% of their misses. Very cool! Oh well.

Tennessee should also know that they’ll have to protect the mid-range from all of Jimmy Whitt’s 14-footers. Outside of Whitt, Arkansas doesn’t take very many bad shots, but they’ve got to make sure these are contested in some fashion.

The three-point defense is fine, don’t worry about it

The three-point defense against Auburn was fine, and it’s not Tennessee’s fault entirely that a pair of players who’d combined to shoot 30.4% from three this season went 6-of-10. (The rest of Auburn went 1-of-10.)

I’m not worried about it, but Tennessee does have to make sure Arkansas is taking contested, tough threes.

Nearly 39% of the Hogs’ shots are from downtown, which means they can allow a greater focus on stopping it compared to having to shut down the paint in the first place. Isaiah Joe takes over ten threes per game, so be ready.

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