We Waited for This? End Game Confusion Dooms Vols to Loss #10

The logic for Tennessee was, hold the rope until Coach Pearl returns, then finish with a second-half flurry once Coach returned...

So much for logic.  With the game on the line, Coach Pearl strangely elected to let his team play.  In their jumbled confusion and panic, they may have put their NCAA Tournament hopes in jeopardy.

Tennessee had a chance to extend to a three point lead, but continued their dismal foul shooting and missed the front end of a crucial one-and-one.  Florida rebounded, got the outlet pass to Erving Walker, and the smallest man on the floor made the biggest play of the night.  Walker raced all the way down the floor, Tyus Edney-stlye, and scored a driving layup to give the Gators a 61-60 lead with 14.7 seconds remaining.

Tennessee looked shaky inbounding the ball and advancing it into the front court.  They appeared to be confused as to what set they wanted to run and whether or not a screen was to be set or waived off.  However, with two timeouts left in his pocket, Pearl elected to do nothing.  The last possession result ended up being a Melvin Going's step-back contested three pointer that clanged harmlessly away from the rim and sealed the Vols doom.

I agree Coach - Just call the TIMEOUT!!

The win, coupled with the Kentucky loss today, all but seals up the SEC East for the Gators at 9-2 and everyone else at least two games back in the loss column, plus the tiebreak edge from head-to-head wins.

For Tennessee, it is loss #10 - and right back balancing precariously on the bubble.  It is a particualrly tough loss to swallow, failing to get off a quality last second shot with timeouts in their pocket, and never getting the ball in the hands of their best shooter and scorer, Scotty Hopson.

The Vols now face near must-win games in their next two home games, against South Carolina and Georgia.  They own some simply fantastic non-conference wins; VCU, Missouri State and more importantly, Pitt and Villanova.  However, they have now lost three straight, have ten losses overall and are only 5-5 in the good, but certainly not great, SEC.

For the Gators, the win keeps them locked in to win the SEC, and continue their march towards being the Top 4 seed that every analysts picks to be upset in Round One.

A Learning Experience, Minus the Pearls of Wisdom

Knoxville, TN:  January 11th, 2011

Tennessee entered SEC play, and the beginning of Coach Bruce Pearl's suspension with a hard-fought overtime loss to the Florida Gators.  There are certainly lessons to be learned from any tough loss, however I'm not sure the Vols learned the right ones.

Time after time in the extra period Tennessee took contested shots, over-penetrated into charges, and generally played horrendous offense; the eventual result was the 81-75 loss.  Down the stretch in both regulation and OT Tennessee had a chance to do something every good team needs to do before March; learn how to win on your own.  

It's something Coach K has done artfully for decades down in Durham.  Early in every season, at a time his team hits a rough patch and momentum begins to turn, when the crowd becomes hostile and panic starts to set in as the game begins to slip away, Coach K folds his hands... and does nothing.  Dick Vitale goes hoarse screaming to "get a TO" but Coach never bites.  Sometimes, your teams needs to learn how to win on their own.

When Tennessee was faced with the first of many coach-less challenges this season, the response was less than encouraging for Vol fans; they shrunk, groused at officials, and unraveled.

Would Pearl on the bench have made the difference?  Honestly, in a game that went to overtime and a single quality possession could have made the difference, absolutely they win that game with Coach Pearl.  And it's not going to get easier for the Vols with a really good Vandy team coming to Knoxville Saturday looking to bury the Vols early behind an 0-2 start in the hyper-competitve SEC East.

Now for my favorite play, "Did you know I'm rich?"

Should Pearl even be sitting out at all?  It's an interesting question - one for an entirely different column one of these days.  But, for argument's sake consider this precedent:  Last year the NCAA suspended Dez Bryant for the entire season for lying to the NCAA.  The kicker?  What he lied about wasn't even a major infraction.  The draconian penalty was strictly for the lie.

The other kicker?  He is a kid.  Bruce Pearl, like Bryant's former coach, is "40" and a "grown man."  Quite simply - he should, and probably did, know better.  That knowledge is essentially incumbent upon his position as a leader and prominent figure earning seven-figures at Tennessee's largest state run university..

So while the Vols players' search for an identity not yet found in their incongruous 3-0 record versus ranked opponents overlaid against their 7-6 mark against those not, Pearl must search for a way to coach without "coaching."  Meanwhile Vol fans are learning important lessons in emotional balance as they ride the roller coaster, and UT officials are trying to decipher perhaps the most nebulous lesson; "how do we rationalize not firing this coach, because damn we really don't want to."  You see some lessons are learned on the court, and some are learned off - in both arenas I'm not sure Tennessee's players are learning the right ones...

Rocky Week in Rcky Top

It's definitely been a strange season already in Tennessee.  Bruce Pearl and the Vols off-court problems have recieved a ton of attention, but their performance on the court has been every bit as strange and erratic.

One week ago, one could have made a compelling case that Tennessee merited a Top 5 ranking.  No team in the country boasted a better pair of wins than the Vols ten point win over Villanova, and their not-as-close as the score seven point win at Pittsburgh.  Add in less impressive but still quality wins over VCU, Chattanooga and Missouri State and Tennessee's perfect 7-0 record carried a ton of weight.

So how do you explain the last seven days for Pearl's club?  The 89-82 loss to Oakland (of the Summit League, campus in Michigan, NOT "Oakland" Oakland...) made some sense.  Oakland has a good ballclub, and had already played fantastic in close losses to Michigan State and Illinois.  Their other three losses were to Purdue, Wright State and West Virginia; nothing to be ashamed of.  Tuesday's game, played only two days after a huge emotional dismantling of Pitt on the road, set up perfectly for the dreaded "let down" trap game.

Tonight's 49-48 loss to struggling Charlotte is tougher to explain away.  Charlotte entered play a distant shadow of last year's squad that contended for a tourney bid up until the final few weeks of the season, with a 4-6 record that included losses to Gardner-Webb, Coastal Carolina, Oregon State and Davidson.  Not only did Tennessee drop a second straight game at home, they finished with a point total that equals a normal half of play for the up-tempo Volunteers. 

So which team is the real Tennessee?  My guess is somewhere in the middle.  There is no need to panic quite yet in Knoxville, but it is fair to say some of the safety a good pre-conference slate of wins afford has slipped through the Vols fingers. 

The SEC East is as good as any conference in the nation, with Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt and Georgia all potential NCAA Tournament teams.  South Carolina, the presumptive last place team is no slouch either.  The West is off to a dreadful start, but Tennessee will have to make their way through a gauntlet to win that division.

For Vol fans, just buckle up and enjoy a rocky ride in Rocky Top.  With Pearl's 8-game suspension still looming, the uncertainty surrounding Tennessee is unlikely to fade for quite some time.

When the calendar flips to March, i expect the Vols to settle into the 5-8 seed range.   Nothing shameful in that, but with the heightened expectations beating two Top 10 teams before Christmas brings, it might be a tormenting season in Knoxville.

The Eric Gordon Theory and Volunteering

Take a good, not great team; think "Top 25-good." Then take away their senior co-captain. In addition, take away another three of their eight rotation players. Sounds like a certain recipe for disaster, right?

Not for the Tennessee Volunteers. A week ago it looked like Bruce Pearl would need to spend the remainder of the season explaining that "volunteer" only equated "community service" if is wasn't court ordered. Post season? Hell, who was going to post bail!

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the wayside. Tennessee didn't implode. They actually got better. Thursday night they hammered a good Charlotte team in their first test. Then they got a lot better. Like 76-68 over #1 Kansas better.

I think I can explain it too. Dean Smith famously said that for one game, the absence of a great player can actually be a positive as it makes you more unpredictable to defend. It is in the after where the problem lies. If that were true, it could explain the impressive Charlotte win. Either way, the quote never went as far as to address combing the campus for walk-ons in order to avoid a Hickory Huskers, "my team is on the floor" playing with four scenario...

Back to my explanation. I call it the Eric Gordon Theory. Our long time readers will recall several columns questioning the heart and hustle of the Hooiser's ballyhooed freshman several years back. I questioned his NBA readiness, his focus, basically his entire game. Then Kelvin Sampson's cell phone bill came due and IU dismissed the coach amidst controversy and NCAA heat. Things got worse, rumors, lots of them, began to surface regarding many of his teammates "extra-curricular" activities that were a little more serious than some underage beers. By all accounts, Gordon was a fairly reserved, polite, and non-drug using kid (all speculation - no factual evidence to substantiate my theory for my litigation-skewed readers...).

Maybe he was "pouting" and "losing focus" and "forcing shots" not because he was selfish and stat-hungry. Maybe he was just genuinely miserable. Think about it. You're 18 years old. Your coach and mentor was fired. Your teammates; your new family, engage in illegal activities you want no part of and that would jeopardize your NBA career. Ever since you were a little kid, you dreamed of playing for the crimson and cream of Indiana...

And this is what you get. You can't complain publicly because you'd be betraying your team, your school; your state. You can't; hold on, you won't quit. But you don't really want to play either. You just want this experience, this season to be over.

In Gordon's own words, excerpted from the Indy Star:

“Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on. I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically. It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”

Of course, this my personal interpretation and you could argue me wrong... but I wouldn't budge. The Theory makes sense, and it happens more than us, the viewers, can see.

Here's how the Eric Gordon Theory applies.

Imagine you are a freshman or sophomore who loves basketball and is a decent kid. Believe it or not, there are a ton of them out there (go to a Kansas, Duke, Purdue, Gonzaga, Syracuse, etc game). Your senior leader and multiple teammates lead everyday lives where it is not just possible, but normal to get in a car with liquor, marijuana and guns with altered serial numbers. I get it; college kids drink and many even try smoking weed. It doesn't make them bad kids. The guns? Now we're getting serious. My Mom used to say nothing good ever happens after 2am. Um, make that double if you are high and packing heat. For lack of a more polite colloquialism, now we're talking some gangsta' shizzz.

Let's assume that with the four suspensions, the garbage has all been taken out. All of a sudden a cloud lifts and everything basketball; practice, road trips, hanging out with teammates, is fun again. The whole team begins playing and having fun, just like they envisioned when they signed their letters of intent. We can just play ball.

Amazingly, the results improve.

Does it make sense that a team loses four of its top eight players and improves? Not if the game was played on paper. But it isn't. It is played by real people with real lives and real ups and downs. Sometimes just wanting to be there makes all the difference.

On Sunday in Knoxville, after taking down the #1 team in the nation, there's nowhere else Bruce Pearl and his kids would rather be.

Article Research and Related Links:
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=109372
http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2008/12/eric-gordon-says-drugs-caused-problems-at-iu-under-kelvin-sampson
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/basketball/ncaa/01/01/tennessee.players.arrested.ap/index.html

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