Inarticulate Yelling

curled up, lying in your own emotional vomit

February 1: Florida 67, #2 Tennessee 54 (18-4, 7-2 SEC)
February 4: #2 Tennessee 46, #25 Auburn 43 (19-4, 8-2 SEC)

The title of this column was almost “Punting is Winning,” but then punting was not winning once this week, so I figured it would be pointless to title it that. But at various points during Saturday’s game, maybe around the 14th ughhhhh or the 17th (of the day; 39th of the week) oh God or the 21st pondering of “if I’m a Tennessee newsletter writer is it still excusable to change the channel” I kept coming back to this from season 6 of King of the Hill.

I think at its heart KotH is a show for sickos like us, sickos like you, sickos like me. Everyone is defiantly not perfect. Hank, the patriarch, is probably the least-flawed character of the main group, which says something, because Hank is a workaholic with pretty serious anger management problems. Everyone is extremely messy, has good and bad days, and creates some of the funniest screw-ups to ever air on American television. If you wish, this is the part where you are allowed to compare mooning former Texas governor Ann Richards to essentially mooning everyone watching if you’re a participant in Auburn/Tennessee.

But I like and mostly love KotH because of all those flaws. It’s a deeply human show, same as The Simpsons was, though I would not argue it to be a superior show than that. Still, when you’re sitting on the couch at home as I am, it’s pretty easy to stare it down and say “why did you do that?” Why does Tennessee have to score a total of 100 points in a week days after dumping 82 (and it could’ve been more) on a top 10 opponent? Well, easy for me to say, because I’m not part of the show.

You have to admit, though: the inarticulate yelling and screaming and vomiting is pretty fun to participate in, as long as you can stand it.

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Let this not be recognized as some sort of defense of Tennessee’s offensive deficiencies over the last week of play. Across two games, Tennessee managed the following collection of stats:

• 100 points on 132 possessions, or 0.756 PPP (which is terrible!);

• 29-for-91 on two-pointers (31.9%; national average 50%);

• 7-for-46 on threes (15.2%; national average 33.9%);

• The second (Auburn) and seventh (Florida) worst shooting performances against SEC competition since 2001;

• The fewest points in any shot-clock era win for Tennessee with 46 (prev. low 47 against Kentucky, 1999);

• And, perhaps worst, a -10 scoring margin in a week where KenPom expected Tennessee to go +18.

It’s nasty enough to sit here and type it out and read it. It was far worse experiencing it in real time. I don’t think this is the space to go back and read everyone’s old tweets because I’m starting to find that to be unhelpful. But: just Twitter search “Tennessee offense” assuming Elon hasn’t ruined that yet and you’ll get what you need to get. Tennessee entered this week with a genuinely good amount of 4+ minute scoring droughts: just six all season, which was fewer than the national average of 8.5 or so.

They managed three in the Florida game alone and miraculously avoided adding a pair more against Auburn by mere seconds.

If you’ve been waiting patiently for the reason to not believe in Tennessee finally Getting It Done, you have it now. Tennessee sits at 60th on KenPom offensively as I type; no other top 10 team is lower than 42nd (Saint Mary’s). A historically great defense, even with regression looming, only saved Tennessee’s bacon once this week. Tennessee is now shooting 32.3% from deep, which would be the second-worst hit rate from three in the Barnes era ahead only of the abominable 2019-20 squad.

The lowest-rated offense entering the NCAA Tournament to win the title was the total outlier 2013-14 UConn squad, and even they were 58th, two spots ahead of Tennessee. Remove them from the equation and the next-lowest is 2010-11 UConn (lol) at 22nd. It is, indeed, very unusual for a team with a non-top 25 offense to win on Monday in April.

All of those fears are very much warranted, and you can quantify them right there. If Tennessee wants to take advantage in what is statistically the most parity-filled year in modern college basketball history, their offense cannot suck to the extent it sucked last week. I imagine that is an obvious statement. It is also worth noting that this statement is being made with over a month to go before Selection Sunday, in which a lot of things can change.

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The case laid out above - that the offense just isn’t good enough - is obviously a bummer if you’re a fan and you’re reading this. But the other side of this is the option of “what if it gets better?” Tennessee remains on track for no worse than a 2 seed (per Torvik; 80% chance or so), but everyone loves a worst-case scenario, so let’s see what happened to some future 1-3 seeds over the last 15 years (2007-2022, excluding 2020 for obvious reasons) who had an offense ranking 50th or worse on February 1. (Look, this is time-sensitive and I didn’t want to re-run the data.)

That’s a 15-team sample, which is by no means definitive but is 15 more than zero. And here is the immediate thing I noticed: literally every single one of them got better. Every single one. All 15 of these teams, whether by dead cat bounce or legitimate improvement, saw their below-average (for Tournament purposes) offenses increase in efficiency, some dramatically, from February 1 to March 12 or whatever. The NCAAT wins column is the only thing a subset of fans will care about, presumably, but given that the school we’re talking about here has one (1) solitary Elite Eight run ever, a 40% shot at it could be worse.

(Quick note here: of those 15 teams, only two ended up 1 seeds, but we’ve gone over time and time again how this is an unusually upset-filled year for college basketball. I wouldn’t really think too much of that unless, you know, Tennessee snowballs into a few more losses.)

But that’s besides the point. That’s in March. Tennessee’s offense, very likely, has bottomed out. It surely should have after a 100-point week. If it took that +2.8 point bump - the average bump for this 15-team data set - Tennessee jumps from 60th to 31st in offense, which is higher than what last year’s team entered March at, and you’ll hear fewer questions. A three-point jump - three whole points per 100 possessions between now and Selection Sunday - makes them a top-30 offense in this year’s weakened field.

Considering that Tennessee’s defense is pretty likely to take a small, but somewhat noticeable step back, an increase in offensive output is desperately needed to offset that and to keep people looking towards March. Understandably, no one around here wants to discuss March, because of what’s happened before. This past week did nothing to quiet that, and frankly, I’d argue it made it much worse than it was at any other point this season. And yet, the Dauterive Mindset reminds us:

Ultimately, it is on these players and this staff to get themselves out of that tunnel, away from the boxcar full of heartbreak. I really do think they’re capable of it. People are sick of The Numbers and The Metrics (look under any tweet of mine that has either in it) and The Process, but again, this is the #2 team in KenPom, the #4 team in Massey Ratings’ consensus rankings, and the #6 team in the AP Poll. Clearly, a lot of impartial observers think these guys are really good. A lot of more partial observers do not, because they believe they cannot leave the tunnel.

We’ll simply have to see what wins out: history or heuristics.

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Some various observations in bullet-point form, but first:

Mindfulness. So: I agree it was not a great week for Tennessee basketball. It was probably a net-negative one in some aspects. I think people are allowed to be upset and feel whatever they want to feel. I am also thinking I’m getting increasingly alarmed by how rude and jerk-like fans are to other fans, or readers are to beat writers, or simply humans are to humans.

Tennessee (erm, Vol) Twitter seems especially prone to this. The Florida loss brought a lot of back-and-forth sniping between sports radio types and writers/observers, as well as your usual fan vs. fan violence. I wouldn’t be pointing this out if I didn’t genuinely believe it’s taking several steps too far. I think if you’re getting real satisfaction out of shooting someone down online, you need to take a step back and re-evaluate what’s really meaningful to you as a human being.

I’m saying this here because I’m as guilty of it as anybody. I make fun of what I think are dumb replies or quote-tweets or whatnot. I’m muting left and right when I think someone’s being ridiculous. I’m quote-tweeting things I should not be quote-tweeting. Social media is a poison pill for us all; the effects vary from person to person. I’ve realized I am not very good at handling it, therefore I should be taking a step back from it.

But I think others could perhaps learn that it’s fine to politely disagree without calling someone the dumbest person who ever lived. I would also like to enjoy my quasi-online experience without having wanna-be shock jocks jump down my throat every time anything goes wrong with the local basketball team. I suppose this section should be titled It Is What It Is because nothing about Twitter or its attitude with regards to college athletics will ever change, but I’m frankly really disappointed in what I’ve seen people put in the mentions of various writers or observers of this team. At minimum, exercise some amount of caution before pressing send, as I promise you really do not know what the person on the other end is or isn’t going through.

Anyway: the real bullet points.

• Rebounding: the ultimate saver of bacon. The only reason Tennessee had a chance against Florida, and really the secondary reason they beat Auburn, was because they crushed the boards. Tennessee had a combined 34% OREB% this week to their opponents 18%. If you prefer a counting total, they had 33 offensive rebounds to Florida/Auburn’s 13. That’s how you win with 46 points and how you at least hung in for so long against a Florida side that shot well and rarely turned it over. Tennessee’s now #3 in OREB%, and when the only teams ahead of you in the category are Purdue (has literal giant) and Duke (is Duke) you’re probably good at it.

• Defensive shot selection. I think as we edge closer to the end of the season we’re seeing a real pattern in what Tennessee’s forcing. Five of the last six opponents have taken 40% or more of their shots from downtown, which would be less notable if any of those six opponents were above a 38.6% three-point attempt rate on the year. The way to beat, and more likely to lose to Tennessee, is to take a billion threes.

• Two worst Offensive Ratings in SEC play: Mashack and…Tyreke Key. Mashack is at least less surprising because it’s Jahmai Mashack and it seems like we’ve only heard rumors of him hitting a “three” “pointer.” Tyreke Key is the same guy that dumped 26 on Gonzaga in an exhibition but has 25 points total in his last six games. I really don’t think this is Barnes being too hard on a player because his rate in which he’s taking shots hasn’t dropped dramatically. This is a “get out of your own head, man” deal.

• The two best: Vescovi, even with shoulder injury, and…Julian Phillips! Raise your hand if you would’ve guessed that. Phillips sits at 49% 2PT/46% 3PT/79% FT in SEC play and remains the best at getting to the free throw line. I’m with everyone who would like to see him shoot more, but that’s also on Phillips to demand the ball more.

• Far, far, far too many low-quality shot attempts. Synergy pegged Tennessee for 45 (!) shot attempts in the 20th-percentile or worse of Synergy’s Shot Quality metric. This is alarming considering they entered this week averaging about 11.6 of those attempts per game. Nkamhoua in particular barfed up some awful mid-range twos against Florida, while Zeigler’s newfound fondness with hoisting 27-footers with four seconds left on the shot clock is problematic.

• Looking ahead. This is likely the least-challenging week Tennessee’s got left on the schedule: KP #100 Vandy on the road, KP #54 Missouri at home. They’re double-digit favorites in both, which is not something you can say about any other week left. It’s a demand that Tennessee go 2-0 this week; the expected scoring margin is +24.