2023-24 Tennessee basketball preview: expectations and predictions
The People Demand Takes and I Am Sworn to God to Give Them
PREVIOUSLY: Backcourt, frontcourt, schedule analysis, burning questions.
Call this a summary post: it summarizes everything we’ve already talked about and gives the reader a list of expectations and my personal predictions for Tennessee’s 2023-24 season. I am tired of writing, so let’s go. Free post because this one has no unique research in it.
REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS
LOCAL
Stop playing two bigs together. I think Tennessee is already aware, but playing Jonas Aidoo and Tobe Awaka together is annoying for everything but rebounding. When they ran them both last year, the offense flowed worse and the defense forced fewer turnovers. Don’t do it. Just alternate Aidoo and Awaka at the 5.
Figure out your rotation by January. That might be aggressive, but this is mostly about two things: I want to know how you’re gonna split up minutes among a crowded backcourt and I want to know how many minutes Jonas Aidoo is capable of playing. I also just have zero interest in playing either of the freshman bigs on January 20 against Alabama, for example, unless Estrella or Phillips has improved by a great amount.
Score. Like I said earlier this week, I don’t think Tennessee can eliminate scoring droughts entirely. No team can; every team suffers from a few throughout the year. But instead of having them happen every 2-3 games, get that cut down to every 5-6 or better. I think people will be more okay with a random No Field Goals Since 15:09 graphic if it’s February 24 and it’s the first time it’s happened all month.
REGIONAL
Win at least one of the two SEC titles. If Tennessee swings and misses on the regular season, they better win the conference tournament. If they can’t win the conference tournament, they better win the regular season title. This is the best and deepest roster in the SEC, with the only possible exception to the “deepest” qualifier being Arkansas if Eric Musselman figures out how to play a 12-man rotation. Go get some hardware. It’s time.
Have one of the four best offenses in the conference. This really is not a hard ask. If Tennessee can be a top-4 SEC offense - a thing they have not done since 2018-19 - the team as a whole is headed in the right direction. I don’t think we’re really asking for the guys to instantly be top-15 nationally; people just want more competency. A top-four offense should be a top-25 one in the nation.
A minimum of 12 conference wins. Minimum is the key word. That’s the preseason analytical expectation per Torvik and KenPom, but Tennessee is favored in 14 of their 18 SEC games. If you assume they pull off one upset in the four they can afford a loss or two elsewhere. Dingers, etc.
Three players on the All-SEC teams. I could be swayed to four, really. All of Santiago Vescovi, Zakai Zeigler, and Dalton Knecht should make it. I lean towards Jonas Aidoo being the fourth over JJJ if it gets to four. There’s roughly 15-16 spots available because the SEC forgot that only five players play at a time.
A 3-2 record against the Kentucky/Arkansas/Alabama triplet. Texas A&M is better than at least two of these teams if not all three, but these are the three teams you generally measure yourself by in the conference. Mostly, I think Tennessee needs to hold serve in the two home games and pick off one of these on the road. Preferably Arkansas because it would erase an inordinate amount of bad Bud Walton Arena memories.
No stupid losses. Games that qualify as Stupid Losses: home Ole Miss, home South Carolina, home LSU, home Vanderbilt, and road South Carolina. There is not a single circumstance I can cook up where any of these five would be an acceptable loss. Don’t do it.
NATIONAL
Spend the entire year (okay, >90% of it) inside the KenPom top 10. Like it or not, KenPom is a more accurate read of a team and a situation than the AP Poll is. I do not care where Tennessee ranks in the AP Poll at any given time. If Tennessee sits as a year-round top 10 team that’s a good enough sign for future results. I think they’re capable of finishing top 5, but the difference between 7th and 5th is not meaningful enough for me to get that worked up.
Get the offense in the KenPom top 25 by season’s end. I am willing to sacrifice the defensive excellence all the way down to having them rank, like, 13th. Everyone wants more balance, and this is the time to have balance.
Go 11-2 in the non-conference slate. If you do this, you’ve beaten at least six of the following: Wisconsin, North Carolina, Purdue/Gonzaga, the third Maui opponent, Illinois and NC State. Four wins among that group means at worst a pair of legitimate Top 25 wins, only one of which would be at home. Tennessee always shreds in non-conference play, but it’s imperative this year to build the resume early.
Get a 2 seed or better in the NCAA Tournament. I was tempted to say a 3 seed, but why be boring?
Make the Elite Eight or further. That is why I didn’t want to say 3 seed. We’re asking for one thing and one thing only: perform to seed expectations. If you’re a 2 seed, you should make the Elite Eight barring an awful draw or a severe injury to a main contributor. Dingers.
STRETCH-LIKE EXPECTATIONS
More of a scatterbrained list than anything.
Create the first-ever 10-man rotation (min. 8 MPG) that works in modern college basketball. The main nine you’re aware of plus Cameron Carr. This will not and should not happen, but hey.
Become the second Tennessee team since 2007-08 to score 80 points per game. You’ve scored 89 and 90 in exhibitions! How hard can it be? It’s a child’s game.
Finish the year inside the KenPom top 15 in offense AND defense. YEAAAAAHHHHH BABY now we are cooking. 65 teams have done it over the last 21 seasons, so Tennessee would merely need to be one of the three. Those who’ve done it in the past have had an average seed of 1.7 and have won 3.1 games per tourney, with nine of the last 21 champions represented.
Win both conference titles. Alright.
Win 15+ games in the SEC. This would be extremely hard to do, but it would be historic if it happens. Tennessee has only won 15+ conference games thrice in program history and just once since 1977. Even a 14-4 record would give them just their fourth 14+ win season since 1977.
Finish inside the top 5 in KenPom. They’ve never done it: peak finishes of 9th and 6th the last two seasons. Trending upwards!
Make the Final Four. This would cause me to 404 File Not Found
LAST YEAR VERSUS THIS YEAR
This is blatantly stolen from Brian at MGoBlog, sorry.
BETTER
Dalton Knecht offense >>>>> Julian Phillips offense
2023-24 Offense >>> 2022-23 Offense
Having three multi-level scorers >>> having one and he’s on a scooter
Jonas Aidoo >>> Uros Plavsic
2023-24 rotational depth >> 2022-23
Having a backup point guard >> not having one
Junior Year Zeigler > Sophomore Zeigler
Jordan Gainey >> Tyreke Key (at the high-major level)
Junior Year Mashack on offense > Sophomore Mashack on offense
Transition pieces 23-24 > 22-23
This year’s freshmen production on O > last year’s between Phillips and Awaka
Healthy JJJ > injured JJJ
Percentage of shots at rim from perimeter players 23-24 >> 22-23
SAME
Vescovi = Vescovi
Center offensive production = center offensive production
Mashack worst offensive player in 2023-24 rotation = Mashack worst offensive player in 2022-23 rotation
JJJ, for better or for worse = JJJ
Shot selection 2023-24 likely = shot selection 2022-23
WORSE
Dalton Knecht’s defense <<<< Julian Phillips’ defense
Number of playable frontcourt bodies 2023-24 < 2022-23
2023-24 defense < 2022-23, 2021-22 defenses
2023-24 defensive rebounding < 2022-23, 2021-22 DREB
Fourth-line enforcers who do nothing to help the team meaningfully but do beat the hell out of other players < 2022-23
HOT TAKES
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I NEED TAKES SO HOT THEY ARE THE AUBURN SPORTS INFO DIRECTOR LOOKING AT BRUCE PEARL’S TWITTER ACCOUNT ON AN AVERAGE WEDNESDAY AND WONDERING HOW SOON HE CAN CHANGE THE PASSWORD BUT THEN REMEMBERING HE ALSO HAS TO DEAL WITH HUGH FREEZE
The worst team in the SEC will be someone other than South Carolina. I don’t know that I actually believe this, and Lord knows I didn’t write it down in the SEC preview. But! I am a stupidly big believer in the Rubber Band Effect, and there is no way South Carolina underachieves as horrifically as they did a year ago. They’ll be a Wednesday Nashville team (11th-14th) but I think this Georgia roster could be worse. I am surprised that there’s such a wide consensus that Lamont Paris is DOA given it took him two full years to get it rocking at UTC.
Grant Nelson is not one of Alabama’s three best players. Color me deeply skeptical that a guy who wasn’t a top-two player in a league that doesn’t play defense is suddenly going to be one of the ~7 best players in a league that requires defense. Come on dude. Mark Sears, Rylan Griffen, and Aaron Estrada all clear easily.
Kentucky loses at home against Marshall on November 24. Kentucky has lost a game to a team outside of the KenPom top 100 in four straight seasons; this would be the fifth. I think Kentucky is going to be just fine once they figure out rotations and get to full health, but this is a really poorly scheduled game against 1) A team that runs a system Kentucky rarely sees; 2) On Black Friday; 3) Directly before a home game against 2023 Final Four participant Miami; 4) Against a team with four road wins over Top 100 teams in the last three years. KenPom gives this just a 5% shot of happening, so it will likely be wrong, but when I’m looking for the classic Shock Kentucky Loss this one really stands out.
The worst game of the SEC conference slate is the first Egg Bowl on January 30. Mississippi State cannot score, which is one thing, but they will once again have a top-10 defense. Ole Miss’s two best defenders are currently waiting on waivers to tell them if they can play basketball this year or not, and the only point guard on the roster is a horrifically inefficient high-usage MAAC transfer. When you think of close games that were awful, this is a first-ballot hall of famer. The final score will be in the neighborhood of 50-47.
LSU makes the NCAA Tournament. Jalen Cook is eventually gonna get his second waiver request approved. If the NCAA approved Tanner Holden at Wright State, who has the exact same case, they probably gotta do it here. Of course, I am assuming the NCAA would ever do anything intelligently, which is my own fault. Anyway! This is an underrated roster with more plus high-major players than just Cook. I like all of Jordan Wright, Carlos Stewart, Derek Fountain, and Will Baker. Plus, this is more Rubber Band Effect stuff, because LSU underachieved harder than any other SEC team last year. Tigers!
PREDICTIONS
A baker’s dozen.
Dalton Knecht leads the team in scoring with 15.1 PPG.
Zakai Zeigler leads the conference in assists.
In February, there will be a mini-panic on various message boards about how Tennessee has suddenly lost a couple of very tough games because people forget that basketball is not football.
This will lead to about the 17th-most annoying week of sports talk radio in the last year in Knoxville.
The team attempts 41% of their shots from three, which ties the program record set in 2006-07. They convert about 35.5% of them, which ends up top-100.
Tennessee’s best defensive player from an analytics sense is Jonas Aidoo, but Zakai Zeigler receives more votes for DPOY by way of playing more minutes and/or being a more visible player.
A Tennessee player does NOT win Defensive Player of the Year in the SEC because voters cannot agree which of 4-5 players to give it to. Johni Broome from Auburn wins it in a mild upset.
Tennessee finishes 19th in KenPom’s Adjusted Offensive Rankings, their highest finish since 2018-19 and just the third top-20 offense in the last 15 seasons.
Tennessee finishes a horrific, embarrassing 7th - CAN YOU IMAGINE - in KenPom’s Adjusted Defensive Rankings, their worst finish in four seasons. A good bit of this is driven by opponents going from shooting 26% from deep to hitting a blistering 30.4% of attempts despite Tennessee changing nothing about their defensive approach in either season. I wonder if that might be totally random or something.
Three other players get over 10+ PPG: Zakai Zeigler, Santiago Vescovi, and Josiah-Jordan James. Freddie Dilione comes up just shy at 9.7.
Tennessee wins the SEC regular season title, but does not win the conference tournament. Most fans are fine with this.
Tennessee wins 26 or 27 games before the NCAA Tournament. Not sure which number I like more.
Tennessee receives a 2 seed and goes on to at least crack the Elite Eight. Am I going to commit to the Final Four? Of course not. Give it time. Also, they get a 2 seed because the committee gets queasy about a team with 7+ regular season losses. No team has ever had 8 losses and gotten a 1 seed and only two with 7 losses have gotten one, so Tennessee would probably have to go 25-6 (14-4 SEC) and not immediately lose the SEC Tournament quarterfinal to get there since the field is effectively frozen 48 hours before Selection Sunday. Plausible, for sure, but they’d need help.
I was sold on this team before the game at MSU but now I think it's Final Four or bust.