Before last year, Tenn had come to Athens and basically turned the Steg into Knoxville South, they bussed fans down for the game, Slimy Bruce ran the concourse one year thanking Vol fans for making the trip I guess but basically just acting like the idiot he is. Now, idiot can't be confused with very good basketball coach, which he is. Still, the man should have been fired for his illegal recruiting tactics but was not for whatever reason, instead suspended for the first half of the SEC schedule. So, when UT arrives tomorrow they will do so will only one Pearl making the trip, Bruce's son that is averaging about 1 point a game.
On to the game, this should be interesting, game set for 7pm Tuesday night on ESPNU. UT is a very hard team to figure out. They are 11-6 on the season, 1-2 in the SEC. What stands out to me most is how many home games they have already lost on the season which is very shocking-and if you further breakdown the losses, not good at all. They lost at home to Oakland which has a 12-8 record, Southern Cal is 10-8, College of Charleston 12-5 and in conference to 13-4 UF. On the road, @Charlotte who is 9-8 and at Ark who is 12-4. On the flip side, they had wins over Villanova and @Pitt early in the season, both those schools are good. Now to look at their starting five.
First of all, they have a great scorer in Scottie Hopson-he is from Kentucky and I remember Felton tried hard to land him in Athens. Anyway, the guy is their leading scorer at 16.5 pts a game, he is a tall/rangy guard and will be a difficult matchup for us. I would imagine Travis Leslie will be asked to guard him primarily although watch for Marcus Thornton as well, he is tall and athletic and has provided some very solid defense and rebounding when he is in the game. Next up for the Vols is Tobias Harris, a 6-8 forward averaging 15.6pts a game and pulling down nearly 8 rebounds a game. Cameron Tatum is a Ga boy, averaging 10.5 pts a game, he is from Tucker, Ga. Tatum is also very quick/explosive and at 6-6, also figures to give us some defensive problems consider we have two guards on the small side. At point is Melvin Goins who averages 8.2pts a game and is a steady leader but small, much the same size as our own Dustin Ware. He is not a shoot first type point guard and I have not seen him shooting from the outside very often, he penetrates well and dishes the ball off. Rounding out the starting five is Brian Williams, dude is HUGE at 6-10 278lbs, scoring only 6 pts a game but slightly more than 8 boards a game. He is not the most athletic guy in the world but certainly could give us fits if he posts up down low. We need Price and Barnes(hopefully the big guy is back) to body him and keep him from getting offensive rebounds and getting easy baskets.
One thing you notice when looking at the UT stats, after the starting five, they don't really have a 6th man or really any one that makes a major impact off the bench. Trae Golden, the kid we tried to get out of the ATL area, leads them off the bench at 4 pts a game. So, as has been the case in both our SEC victories, we need to play aggressive and take it to them. With our improved free throw shooting, we are now up to 8th in the conference after starting at 12th, we need to get points where we can. UT is a dangerous team and now that they have that first win, we need to come out strong and take control as has been our way of playing in our 2 wins. Against Vandy, although we gave them a tough fight, we never led in that basketball game. Vandy came out strong and we simply could never catch them. If we can get them in foul trouble, that really does help our chances because I don't think they have a lot of confidence in their bench, or simply the bench has not been overly productive just looking at the stats. They could have a stud on their bench but if so, I am not seeing it just looking at it on paper. Not that we have an explosive bench either for that matter but we do have Barnes which offers 4 points, 4 rebounds a game. I think it is safe to say neither team can afford foul trouble.
Some interesting stats, UGA is #2 in the SEC in FG%, #1 in assists per game, #10 in turnovers per game-I don't have the percentages but I would imagine we are close to #1 in FT percentage in SEC games only after shooting 67/76 in our first three games, which is 88%. Now, something we need to work on is rebounding, we are 7th in rebounding although again, since SEC play began, we are averaging 44 rebounds a game, compared to 35 for our opponents, so I will take a +9 every day of the week. Still, UT is going to present us a tough rebounding challenge as will all three opponents on the 3 game homestand. As I have said before and will say again, we must protect the home court and if we can go 3-0 this homestand, we have 5 conference wins after one third of the season. This means we would need 5 more out of our last 12, along with a win over Xavier to get to the dance. I believe 10-8 SEC will be good enough but then again, if you start out 5-1 and then go 5-7 down the stretch, that certainly is not a positive. But, no sense looking ahead at this point because we play 3 games in a row at home against teams that have a LOT of talent and could easily make the dance.
Nothing much to report on the recruiting front, we offered Crowells HS teammate and friend/cousin recently, a package deal perhaps, but from all accounts this kid, http://rivals.yahoo.com/uga/football/recruiting/player-Quintavious-Harrow-121751, is a pretty good player in his own right but had grade issues which kept schools away. It appears he has improved his grades and now UF and Bama have offered as well. Seems UGA is indeed trying to start a Carver-Columbus pipeline. This week, Thursday, Jay Rome and Malcom Mitchell are expected to make their college picks, hopefully we go at least 50% on there. Also, Jeoffrey Pagan evidently committed to Clemson per rivals, so much for him recruiting kids for UGA. This just goes to show you, when it comes to dealing with 17-18 year old kids, you never know what might happen. Some kids are loyal and mature about the process, others are wishy-washy and immature in the spotlight. Bottom line though, you take your talent on hand and coach them up when they arrive. This is something we need to do a better job of in my opinion but I will get more into that later on.
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