SEC Season

[Purple & Gold Standard]

Tennessee will open up against Ole Miss on Jan.9th at home to open up SEC play...

 

Ole Miss won again to improve to 12-0...I think they were picked last in the SEC West...

 

Tennessee has prepared themselves well...12-1 and they have played a good schedule..Probably will creep back in the Top 10 when the new poll comes out....The Vols are the best team in the SEC

 

I heard yesterday during the Gonzaga broadcast that Tennessee will travel to Kansas next season to start a home and home with the Jayhawks...

 

Tennessee still has two non-conference games that will be in the national spotlight...The Vols still have the Memphis Tigers and the Ohio State Buckeyes to play....

 

Big question will Kentucky even make the NCAA tournament??....5-6 right now..They are going to have it rough just in the SEC East alone....Tennessee,Vandy,Florida and Georgia are all looking better than the 'Cats right now...Don't know how strong Vandy is really...The last two games they have struggled with two OVC teams at home(Tennessee State and Tennessee-Martin)..Undefeated though...

 

The SEC West looks to be pretty much wide open....

[Purple & Gold Standard]

The Vols opened up SEC play with two wins.....The Ole Miss win at home against the undefeated Ole Miss Rebels was a good hard fought win...Ole Miss looked really impressive..I saw the Ole Miss-LSU game last nite and it looked for awhile that Ole Miss would blow the Tigers out of Oxford but LSU fought back and nearly caught the Rebs before losing 74-71..The Rebs had been up by 22 earlier and after LSU cut it down,the Rebs were still up by 12 with under a minute to go...Bad free throw shooting and turnovers almost cost them....

 

Tennessee blew out South Carolina in Columbia 80-56...Playing in SC has not been very good for the Vols but the Vols went out 11-0 to start the game and then blew the Gamecocks out in the opening minutes of the second half to go up as much as 28..UT never trailed in the game...Was a little disappointed in the way the Vols closed out the game..Alot of hot-dogging,missed,free throws and turnovers...Getting more concerned about Chris Lofton's lack of play...At one point in the second half he committed four straight turnovers.He didn't have a point until the final minutes of the first half...To be honest,compared to the rest of the guys for UT,he seems slow and way out of sync...It would be nice to have the old Chris Lofton back...I thought the color commentator the other night in the Ole Miss game hit on something when he was talking about some of the shots Lofton was taking..The last three years Lofton would chunk up those long shots because they didn't have any else that could score but now when he launches those shots they are bad shots because he has so many more weapons he can dish off to....J.Smith is outplaying him right now..Not bad for a former walk-on....I am really glad to see Tyler Smith doing so well..I wasn't all that thrilled about him coming to UT but he is making a fan of me everytime I see him play...When JP Prince gets in the full swing of things,he is going to be a good one to....

 

Kentucky wins.....I was wanting Vandy to come into Knoxville undefeated so the Vols could knock another SEC foe from those ranks...It would also have added to the Vols #1 RPI ranking...I guess the Vols will just have to hang #2 on them...Then the big showdown with the Buckeyes...I hope the Vols blast them right out of Knoxville....

[Solomon]

1. Tennessee

2. Ole Miss

3. Florida

4. Vandy

5. Arkansas

6. Mississippi State

7. Alabama

8. Kentucky

9. Georgia

10. Auburn

11. LSU

12. South Carolina

[Purple & Gold Standard]

Will the real Chris Lofton please stand up?!?....

 

Maybe it will be tonite against Vanderbilt....

[Solomon]

Will the real Chris Lofton please stand up?!?....

 

Maybe it will be tonite against Vanderbilt....

 

 

He's almost there. He's wanting the ball more, which is a step in the right direction. I thought the place and bench was going to go crazy when he hit that 3 with the Vandy player on him.

[Purple & Gold Standard]

He's almost there. He's wanting the ball more, which is a step in the right direction. I thought the place and bench was going to go crazy when he hit that 3 with the Vandy player on him.

 

Are the Vols going to red-shirt Cameron Tatum and Josh Tabb??......

 

The faithful want him to do great things....When hits one or two there is a buzz everytime after that he gets the ball in his hands....

[Sequatchie]

Are the Vols going to red-shirt Cameron Tatum and Josh Tabb??......

I think Tatum -yes with Tabb - I don't think so I think you will see more of him if Lofton, J. Smith or Prince gets in foul trouble or goes out with an injury. I think he has been in Pearl's doghouse for some reason he did get some minutes at South Carolina.

[Solomon]

I think Tatum -yes with Tabb - I don't think so I think you will see more of him if Lofton, J. Smith or Prince gets in foul trouble or goes out with an injury. I think he has been in Pearl's doghouse for some reason he did get some minutes at South Carolina.

 

 

I don't know if he did. I think he was just the victim of Prince coming in. We all knew someone was going to have to sit, and unfortunately it was him. This team has a lot of talent, especially at the 1, 2, and 3. I will say that I have been surprised we've not seen him to come in as a lock-down defender against certain guys more because he is so good at it. Who knows, we still may.

 

Other news is that Crews has been cleared to play. Williams has been servicable, but this is a huge lift. He just gives the team an added dimension and fire because of his intensity. I don't expect him to play much today if any, but I do hope Pearl puts him in for 30 seconds or so just for the explosion it would cause among the fans. He'll slowly work his way back into more PT. He's the missing piece for this team to be a legitimate Final Four contender.

 

P&G - Trust me, there is no one who wants #5 to explode more than me. I would love, love, love to see him do it Tuesday night. And it's not just the fans. I don't know if they showed it on TV Thursday night or not, but when he hit that little hot streak, the ENTIRE bench ran and mobbed him as he was coming over during the time out. It was really cool to see.

[Purple & Gold Standard]

Oh,it would be sweet for Chris to put up about 35 on the Wildcats....

 

Yes,TV showed the bench mobbing Lofton...What TV didn't show was me jumping off my couch when he hit that one in the corner.... /roflol.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":roflol:" border="0" alt="roflol.gif" />

[Solomon]

Oh,it would be sweet for Chris to put up about 35 on the Wildcats....

 

Yes,TV showed the bench mobbing Lofton...What TV didn't show was me jumping off my couch when he hit that one in the corner.... /roflol.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":roflol:" border="0" alt="roflol.gif" />

 

 

4-10 from behind the line and he's working more to get the ball of screens. He's starting to look like himself. I would love for a 30 point dropping on Tuesday.

 

Nice win today. First time they had seen a zone all year. Not a bad game overall. Just glad we could do our part to continue the SEC's domination of Ohio State.

[Solomon]

Sol's Rankings after week 2:

 

1. Tennessee - Hands down the best team in conference. With Crews back, more of a legitimate Final Four contender. Should win 14 conference games.

2. Florida - Young but talented. Will suffer an upset or two along the way, but I also think they will win 10 or 11 SEC games.

3. Mississippi State - Undefeated in conference play. Probably should be #2, but a couple of ugly out of conference losses keeps them behind Florida.

4. Ole Miss - The loss to Auburn is excusable ONLY because it was on the road. When push comes to shove, will probably win the west.

5. Vandy - Looks like they may be the token SEC "can't win a game on the road" team this year. Big difference in their play away from Memorial.

6. Georgia - I cannot believe I have them at #6, but they beat Arkansas, and no one else deserves it more than them right now.

7. Auburn - Other than Tulane, can't really gripe about who they have lost too even if they have been blowouts. They get the nod over Arkansas b/c of the Ole Miss win.

8. Arkansas - Wanted to put them higher, but they've not really done anything to merit it. Losing the Appy State doesn't help your cause either.

9. Kentucky - They should be much better than 7-9. Say what you want, Tubby did not leave them that empty-handed. Billy G has done a horrible job this year.

10. Alabama - When you are a one man team and he goes down.....it's going to be a long season.

11. South Carolina - Coach Odom might be the best X's and O's guy in the conference. Just never could quite turn the program around consistently.

12. LSU - Enjoy football, because Brady isn't leading you anywhere anytime soon.

 

Basically, other than number 1 and 12, I can be convinced of any of the other 10 deserving to be higher or lower.

[montague1]

9. Kentucky - They should be much better than 7-9. Say what you want, Tubby did not leave them that empty-handed. Billy G has done a horrible job this year.

 

 

110% correct. A UK fan and I had a pretty good debate about that a few weeks ago. Tubby would not be 7-9 right now, and he did not leave them without any talented players. Which brings me to my next point..

 

I'm nowhere close to being a UT fan, but I respect what Bruce Pearl is doing. Having Coach Cal at Memphis and Bruce Pearl at UT is great for this state. They have put the clamps down on UK and Arkansas coming into this state and taking away the best players. In recent memory, if you think of the successful years of UK basketball, you think of Tony Delk and Ron Mercer. Both Tennessee guys. UK can't land a Tennessee basketball player now. Now, we still lose some to out of state programs, but UK and Arkansas used to have a Tennessee native on their roster every year, not any more. For some reason, I love that.