Cincinnati Bengals have an Uphill Climb to Get Back to the Super Bowl
After each week of the season that Tennessee plays at least two games, “The Starting Five” on Monday will analyze the previous week of play from the Big Orange while highlighting questions Tennessee is facing in the coming weeks in five subheadings.
The Vols earned a 2-0 week with wins over Mississippi State and Vanderbilt to push their winning streak to four games and their conference winning streak to seven games.
After a lighter stretch of play, the stage is set for No. 16 Tennessee’s rematch with No. 4 Kentucky.
Now, on to the starting five.
Improving Road Performances
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Tennessee’s struggles away from Thompson-Boling Arena and pondered about how much the Vols would improve when facing easier opponents on the road.
Tennessee has improved quite a bit once they started facing easier opponents. The Vols have won back-to-back road games and three straight SEC road games after losing their first three conference road games.
Not only has Tennessee picked up wins but they’ve performed well doing so. The Vols played one of their best offensive games of the season at South Carolina and beat a NCAA Tournament quality Mississippi State team by nine points as just a slight favorite.
While it’s still less likely that Tennessee turns out a strong shooting performance on the road than it is at home, they’ve shown that they can light it up on the road, shooting 52% from three-point range at South Carolina and 42% against Mississippi State.
With road games against Arkansas, Missouri and Georgia still on the schedule there’s no reason to think Tennessee won’t take care of business against the Tigers and Bulldogs or be competitive in Fayetteville.
That wouldn’t leave Tennessee with the best road resume, but it would give the Vols zero bad road losses. That’s something you don’t complain about in college basketball.
Tennessee Capitalizes On Soft Spot Of Schedule
Following Tennessee’s win over Vanderbilt, Rick Barnes observed that the Vols had one of the hardest starts to SEC play while also having a hard close to the conference slate.
The seventh year head coach was right and that means the middle of Tennessee’s conference schedule was easy.
In the past four weeks, the Vols’ hardest conference games were a home matchup with LSU and the road trip to Starkville. Tennessee also played three games against teams currently in the bottom five of the SEC standings.
Credit to Tennessee. The Vols were reeling when they left Lexington a month ago and they’ve completely changed the outlook of the season since. Tennessee not only won seven straight SEC games in the easier stretch of schedule, but they made major improvements in that stretch.
Despite suffering a crucial injury during the stretch, Tennessee has a greater idea about its identity and rotations now than they did at the start of the run.
The Vols have put themselves in a position to finish in the top four of the SEC for the fourth time in five years. This week will show just how grand Tennessee’s improvements are as they face two major tests. More on that in a bit.
Aidoo Looks Like A Real Contributor
Tennessee began life without Olivier Nkamhoua at Mississippi State after the power forward suffered a season ending ankle injury against South Carolina.
The Vols turned to Brandon Huntley-Hatfield to start, but it was a different freshman big man that caught my eye this week.
Jonas Aidoo had played just 15 minutes this season before earning 12 minutes at Mississippi State. The 6-foot-11 freshman isn’t perfect. Aidoo’s flaws were evident, but like Rick Barnes said postgame— he looked like he belonged on the court.
Aidoo grabbed four rebounds while blocking a shot and pinning another into the rim for a jump ball at Mississippi State. The freshman’s length and rim protection gives him a real chance to make a positive impact on the court this season. While he is still limited, Aidoo did a good job playing within himself in his first week seeing major playing time.
Against Vanderbilt, Aidoo played just four minutes but performed well, knocking down a midrange jumper and grabbing one rebound.
So what will Aidoo’s role look like the rest of the season?
Mississippi State’s tall starting lineup forced Tennessee to play less of its small-ball lineup and that meant more playing time for Aidoo.
Against Vanderbilt, Aidoo played just limited first half minutes as Tennessee leaned on its four-guard lineups.
I think you’re going to see more-and-more of the small ball lineup the rest of the season. However, Barnes said whoever plays the best defense will get Nkamhoua’s minutes. Aidoo is far-and-away a better defender than Huntley-Hatfield right now, and that could lead to him earning more of Barnes’ trust in the final weeks of the season.
Most Challenging Week Of The Season Is Here
The run of easier games is over for Tennessee. Things get ratched back up in a big way on Tuesday night when the Vols host No. 4 Kentucky to Thompson-Boling Arena.
That’s just the start of Tennessee’s challenging week as the Vols will travel to Fayetteville to face No. 22 Arkansas on Saturday.
With three weeks left in the season, Tennessee plays two of its three hardest remaining games this week.
The Wildcats humiliated Tennessee in Lexington a month ago and have lost just once since. Kentucky is playing as well as anyone in the country and has a complete team. Center Oscar Tscheibwe is a National Player of the Year contender while guards TyTy Washington and Sahvir Wheeler combine for one of the SEC’s best backcourts.
Arkansas looked like one of the biggest disappointments in the conference six weeks ago. The Razorbacks disappointed against a soft non-conference schedule before losing their first three SEC games.
From there, Arkansas won nine straight games before falling at Alabama on Saturday. Outside of an impressive win over Auburn, Arkansas didn’t beat many quality opponents in the stretch.
However, Arkansas is playing like one of the best teams in the conference and Bud Walton Arena is an extremely difficult place to win.
Tennessee is playing its best basketball of the season to date, but picking up a win and splitting the two contests would be a strong week for the Vols.
Can Vols’ Guards Stay Out Of Foul Trouble?
Tennessee’s strength is its backcourt and they’re going to have to play well if Tennessee wants to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament— or if they want to have a successful week.
As of late, foul trouble has plagued Tennessee’s guards.
Santiago Vescovi has played less than 30 minutes in two of Tennessee’s last three games because he’s dealt with foul trouble, Kennedy Chandler played his least number of minutes since the opener while battling foul trouble against Vanderbilt and Zakai Zeigler spent most the first half at Mississippi State on the bench with two fouls.
Those three players are the driving force behind Tennessee’s offense and when any of them are limited it limits the Vols.
Zeigler and Chandler have been in foul trouble this season but not as consistently as Vescovi. The Vols’ junior — as well as the freshmen — have to be smart about deciding when to gamble on the defensive end.
“There are some of them where we cannot foul,” Barnes said. “We talked to them all the time, and we can never go forward. Kennedy has a 6’7 wingspan and he has to learn how to use it vertically. It is very difficult when you go up and come down, whether if there is contact or not, it looks like a foul, and more times than not, it is a foul. With Santi’s fourth foul, he cannot do that. I know he is playing hard and aggressive; I mean his presence in the game means more than that steal at that point in time. We have to get a little bit smarter. There is a fine line between being aggressive and being overly aggressive or being careless.”
Staying out of foul trouble is even more important due to Barnes’ coaching philosophy. If a Tennessee player gets two first half fouls, they are not going to reenter the game in the first half.
There have been some exceptions this year — mostly for Vescovi — but it’s clearly Barnes’ philosophy not to play players with two fouls in the first half.
If Tennessee has to play 10-plus first half minutes without any of that trio, it’s a major blow. Whether the guards can avoid putting themselves in that situation while be fascinating to watch down the stretch.
