Tennessee @ Temple

Tennessee went into Philly to play Temple, and got run off the floor. There were a lot of things going wrong for the Vols, but it all comes down to their offense. They looked completely out of sync in the first half on the offensive end. The Vols were settling for deep three's which they weren't hitting. Tyler Smith was forcing ill-advised drives to the rim. Bobby Maze wasn't able to get into the lane. A lot of it had to do with Temple's tough defense, but Tennessee did not come out ready to play (Scottie Hopson was benched at the start of the game for missing the team breakfast and JP Prince did not play after spraining his ankle).

Tennessee's inability to score had a bigger effect than a low number on the scoreboard. The Vols rely on their press to create turnovers and turn those turnovers into easy baskets. But since they struggled so much to score, they were unable to get into their press (which was actually very effective in the first half). To give you an idea of how poorly Tennessee played, Dionte Christmas, Temple's best player and leading scorer, was saddled with two fouls in the first half and played limited minutes, scoring just five points. And Temple was still up 34-25 at the break.

The two best players for the Owls in the first half were center Sergio Olmos and guard Ryan Brooks. Olmos is an underrated center. A slender 7-footer from Spain, Olmos has a nice touch on his jumpshot out to about 19 feet, but he also can score with his back to the basket. Olmos is a smart player as well. Twice in the first half, when a Temple guard made a drive to the basket, Olmos sealed off his defender, allowing the guard a wide open lay-up. Brooks looked good as well. Known as more of a spot-up shooter than anything, Brooks was able to put the ball on the floor and score on pull-ups and drives all the way to the rim. Olmos finished with 19, 7, and 5 blocks, while Brooks added 16 points and 10 boards.

The second half was the Dionte Christmas show. Christmas had 35 on the game, with 30 of those coming after the half. At one point, he hit five straight three's in the span of eight possessions. I was really impressed with Christmas. He is clearly a fantastic shooter, but he can also get to the rim. He uses the threat of his jump shot to set up his penetration, as he is not all that quick but has a wide array of pump fakes and jab steps. He is also able to shoot when he is off-balance, making his release all that much quicker. He doesn't need his feet squared to the rim as long as his shoulders are.

Tennessee's press was largely ineffective in the second half. The Vols have two different presses - a hard one where they trap the first pass and look to steal the pass back to the inbounder. The second one is essentially just a full court man-to-man. Despite success forcing turnovers in the first half with the hard press, the Vols stayed with the soft press in the second half, even as Temple was pulling away. They only switched at the very end of the game, and Temple broke the press easily.

The biggest moment of the game came when Bruce Pearl got a technical foul. Tennessee had gotten a 47-34 deficit down to 52-48, and after a Christmas three-pointer, Wayne Chism was called for a travel. Pearl picked up the technical (which it looked like he wanted, trying to motivate his team), and Temple proceeded to go on a huge run. By the time Tennessee recovered, the score was 69-49.

One last thing of note - Tennessee knew every single one of Temple's in-bounds plays. In-bounds plays are like special teams in football. If you can get 6-8 points a game on your in-bounds plays under the basket, that can win you a lot of games. Preventing easy buckets on in-bounds play is all preparation and scouting. It is a good sign for Bruce Pearl and his coaching staff, because Tennessee knew every single one of Temple's plays. Granted, Temple ran some very simple plays (screen-the-screener, run the inbounder off of a screen), but Tennessee did not let them get anything easy, and even forced four or five turnovers off of them.