Wednesday Morning Shootaround

The big game of the night last night was Marquette-Tennessee. The Vols ended up winning by 12 points (80-68), but it was a much closer game than that throughout. The key for Tennessee was cutting off the Marquette penetration. The announcers kept talking about paint touches, and basically what they meant was that Marquette is a perimeter oriented team and they have a tendency to pass the ball around the perimeter and settle for tough jump shots. But when they drive, when they get the ball into the paint, then good things start to happen. The defense collapses, which allows for kick outs to open shooters or dump downs to their medium big guys. If the defense doesn't collapse, then Marquette will get a good look in the paint.

Tennessee was able to limit the number of times the Marquette guards were able to get into the paint, playing great man-to-man defense. One thing I noticed about Tennessee was that Bruce Pearl really has his guys schooled on help-side and fundamental defensive principles. One particular play comes to mind. Dominic James (I think it was him) tried to penetrate baseline from the wing, but was cut off by the help-side defender. The weak side guard had dropped down to the baseline to prevent the cross court pass, and James was forced to try and get the ball to a big guy who was at foul-line extended. Josh Tabb read the pass, stole the ball, and the Vols got a lay-up out of it. Text book defense. And all this came with arguably their best defender in JP Prince on the bench (although I think Cameron Tatum vaulted himself into that discussion by shutting down Jerel McNeal).

Speaking of McNeal, it was when he picked up his fourth that Tennessee started to assert their dominance. Marquette was battling foul trouble the entire game, and to protect themselves they switched into a 1-3-1 zone which completely flustered the Tennessee offense. But Marquette, who had done such an incredible job in the first 30 or so minutes on the defensive glass (Tennessee only had two o-boards at that point), started to be able to get those offensive rebounds and second shot opportunities. This led to a few dunks and got Tennessee really fired up and they started to pull away.

Two guys had career highs in this game - Wayne Chism and Wesley Matthews. Chism is an energy guy for the Vols, providing hustle and rebounding. Regardless of what else he does on the court, if he can get the Vols 8-10 points on 4-5 offensive rebounds a game, they will be such a better team. Last night, Chism went for 26 and 11. Not to be outdone, Marquette's leading scorer Wesley Matthews had a career-high 30. Matthews is a slasher. At 6'5", 220 lb, he's quick enough to get by the first defender, but he is big and strong enough to absorb contact and get to the rim. He's one of the most efficient scorers in the country because he gets to the line a ton and shoots it at 87%.

The rest of the games from last night:

• Texas 88, Texas Southern 72: The Longhorns got out to a sluggish start (down five late in the first half), but 27 from AJ Abrams and 19 from Dexter Pittman was too much.
• Clemson 76, North Florida 36
• Florida State 69, Tennessee Tech 59
• Vanderbilt 71, South Florida 52