Notes, player grades, and video for Tennessee's 2023 tour of Italy
Notes, player grades, and video for Tennessee's 2023 tour of Italy
Minus how bad you feel after the Olive Garden Tour of Italy
Hello! Happy offseason, friends. I haven’t written about Tennessee much lately because I don’t think this newsletter needs to be all Tennessee all the time, but Tennessee’s men’s program just completed a three-game exhibition series in Italy. These games were streamed on FloSports, which sounds like something Progressive Insurance would put in an ad but hasn’t yet. Given that all three games were afternoon affairs on a service you have to pay $30/month for, I cannot imagine viewership was very high.
But. But! I was one of those viewers, thanks to a friend of the Substack. Using a very rudimentary grading system partially borrowed from the brilliant Half Spaces (which itself is based on MGoBlog’s similarly brilliant Upon Further Review), I’ve watched each game twice, offering up grades of +0.5/-0.5 (good or bad), +1/-1 (great or very bad), or the very rare +2 (career highlight level stuff).
Along with that, there’s notes on each game, video clips that would normally be GIFs but aren’t true GIFs because my normal hosting service is down, along with a link to the box score from Tennessee’s official site. There are 4,200+ words in this one, but it’s free because it’s the offseason, so read on.
GAME 1: Tennessee 97, Lithuania U21s 57
MVP: Jahmai Mashack (+11)
A look at Mashack’s stats from the game - 12 points on 5-9 shooting, 5 boards, a few assists - probably would not stand out to the casual observer. I had Mashack charted at a +3 on offense in this one: not bad, obviously, but probably the fourth-best offensive player on the floor. That’s an improvement over last year, but it’s not something to shift worlds over.
This grade is for the defense. No player produced a higher single-game grade on either side of the ball during the Italy series than Mashack’s +8 in this one. Mashack is credited with six steals but it almost shortchanges him; he had two more that were entirely his doing but bounced to Knecht or Dilione. Every time Mashack is on the floor, something good happens defensively for Tennessee. (NOTE: These should take you to the exact point I’m referring to in the game. Offseason malaise and whatnot; by October we’ll have real GIFs again.)
This is the second possession Lithuania had in this game. Most of what they ran was pick-and-roll based; I would not describe it as some sort of beautifully-designed thing. Against more level competition for them I think it probably works fine, but Tennessee sees this style of offense pretty frequently. That being said, watching Mashack swallow the point guard whole here is remarkable stuff. Jonas Aidoo completes a nice double-team here too, but it’s Mashack’s work that creates the turnover.
It was like that the whole game. I don’t know as much about international U21 play as presumably some do, but Lithuania’s lack of real athleticism still doesn’t explain how good some of Mashack’s play was. This was my personal play of the game.
Make no mistake: this is the wrong decision by Lithuania’s ball-handler. A pass over the top to #35 is probably better; alternately he could’ve just held onto the ball. The problem with this line of logic is that, in all likelihood, most of the teams this guy plays against does not have someone who’s going to
Anticipate the bounce pass;
Be quick enough to intercept the pass;
Be agile enough to spin on a dime and create a transition opportunity. (This play led to an Aidoo dunk the other way.)
That is special, special defensive talent and knowledge of the game, my friends. The other aspect here is the score. At 72-34, it would be easy for Tennessee to turn it off and coast the rest of the way, and they somewhat did. After outscoring Lithuania by 40 through 30 minutes, they played the fourth quarter to a draw and made more defensive mistakes than they’d made in quarters 1-3 combined. Not Mashack, though; his intensity and hunger for steals remains at an A-grade level no matter what the score is.
I’m standing steadfast behind a take I’m cooking up for fall, which is that Mashack should be the SEC Defensive Player of the Year if he can squeeze in 25+ minutes a night. (Also if he can avoid foul trouble, which has been an issue at times.) Zakai Zeigler gets the headlines, Jonas Aidoo will get the blocks, Josiah-Jordan James is more well-known and fairly equal in versatility. Mashack is better than all three. He’s on the path to being the single best individual defender I’ve ever seen in Knoxville.
Runner-up: Freddie Dilione (+7.5)
While Mashack was the defensive MVP, Dilione had his best overall game of the weekend and was the offensive MVP here. You can see why Tennessee’s staff and various recruitniks have raved about Dilione’s vision of the court offensively. More than a few times in this game Dilione either made a decision for himself or for others that I found really impressive for a freshman. The space he commands offensively is notable and he’s unusually aggressive for a offense-first guard in Barnes’s system. This late-1Q play summed it up well for me:
Here Dilione slows the offense down after its primary break, gets everyone settled in, then isolates against a taller, slower defender. Dilione gets to the rim; he reasonably could go up for a layup and attempt to draw a foul here. Instead, he makes a better decision, sucking in #3 on Lithuania as a help defender and drawing him away from Dalton Knecht, a very good deep shooter. Knecht takes one step back (he got a +0.5 for this, for the record) and nails one of the more open threes he’ll take in a Tennessee uniform.
It’s three points out of 97 scored on the day, but in a game against overwhelmed competition this play stood out to me more than any of Dilione’s own scoring. I was aware he could shoot very well; I was aware he could get buckets on paper better than any other Tennessee player. (I will go ahead and make the prediction that he’s likely going to be Tennessee’s leading scorer this year.) I frankly was not aware he could command the court as the ball-handler as well as he did in this game. A lot of people were/are fretful over what Tennessee does at point when Zakai Zeigler’s off the court but at minimum I think Dilione’s got a good case to handle it pretty well.
Work to do: D.J. Jefferson (-1)
I had two players with negative grades here: Jefferson and J.P. Estrella. Estrella made more negative plays but it felt wrong to highlight him two games in a row, especially as a true freshman. So: Jefferson it is, who did technically possess the worst score on the day of Tennessee’s main ten men. I remain in awe of Jefferson’s natural athleticism, and he’s one of the best jumpers to ever wear the orange. That being said, plays like these are not ones that Rick Barnes finds terribly acceptable.
Jefferson overplays his help defense hard, sitting in the paint for most of the possession, and with more than enough room to recover he still gives up a drive to the basket for a layup Lithuania’s player frankly should’ve made 8 times out of 10. Jefferson gets lucky that this wasn’t two points directly on him, but Lithuania would go on to get the offensive rebound and get fouled.
Little things like that keep me skeptical. Jefferson struggled for major parts of the Italy trip and really only had one standout quarter of play (3Q, Game 3), but you can see the aspects that a coach would fall in love with. You cannot teach his leaping ability, his lateral movement, or his serious potential as a future lobs-and-blocks threat on the roster. It’s on Jefferson to lock in more often defensively for me to see that at Tennessee, I guess.
Full player grades:
Jahmai Mashack: +11 (+3 offense, +8 defense)
Freddie Dilione V: +7.5 (+5.5 offense, +2 defense)
Tobe Awaka: +5.5 (+3 offense, +2.5 defense)
Josiah-Jordan James: +4.5 (+1.5 offense, +3 defense)
Jonas Aidoo: +3.5 (+1 offense, +2.5 defense)
Santiago Vescovi: +3 (+2.5 offense, +0.5 defense)
Dalton Knecht: +2.5 (+3.5 offense, -1 defense)
Jordan Gainey: +1.5 (+0.5 offense, +1 defense)
J.P. Estrella: -0.5 (-0.5 offense, 0 defense)
D.J. Jefferson: -1 (+0.5 offense, -1.5 defense)
GAME 2: Tennessee 116, Lithuania U21s 90
MVP: Santiago Vescovi (+5.5)
Of Tennessee’s three Italian outings, this was easily the least impressive. Tennessee sleptwalk through much of the second half and most of the game defensively; I had them charted for nearly as many negative points (19.5) on the defensive side as they had in games 1 and 3 combined (20). I get it; playing the same team that you know isn’t very good on back-to-back days is not the most exciting thing in the world.
On a pretty weak day defensively for UT, the offense did stand out quite well. The best offensive player was Dilione (+5.5), but the best two-way player in this one was Vescovi. Going 6-for-8 from the field and 5-for-7 from three helps your case offensively, but in a game where every player that touched the court made at least a few bad decisions I found myself appreciating the little things Vescovi does out there more and more.
This is a really simple entry pass but there’s a variety of ways one could screw it up. If Vescovi bounce passes this, Aidoo still has to do his own job in the post. It’s against a smaller defender, but it’s no guarantee. If Vescovi throws it at Aidoo’s chest, same thing. If Vescovi puts too much on this pass it’s a turnover. But Vescovi still has that same level of passing craft and touch he came to Tennessee with; this one is just to the right shoulder and just deep enough that Aidoo loses the smaller defender. Lithuania’s center cannot recover in time, and it’s an easy two points.
Of Vescovi’s four assists on the day, that one probably appears the least remarkable on the surface. But you and I and everyone have seen enough guard play at Tennessee in our collective lifetimes to know that little things like this often become difficult for perimeter players in orange. The IQ of our grizzled Uruguayan vet remains as high as anyone’s in the SEC; a delightful player to have on one’s side.
Runner-up: Jonas Aidoo (+5)
Aidoo remains a work in progress on the offensive end, which is honestly a bit of a shocker given his high school scouting report of “great offensive player, weak defensively.” The opposite is true in that Aidoo is an elite rim protector but a guy that makes you sweat profusely whenever the ball’s in his hands down low. In this one, Aidoo had his best offensive game of the trip (16 points on 9 shots) but produced an insane statline: 16 points, 11 rebounds, 3 steals, and a block in all of 15 minutes. The offensive rebounding is something that would make Tobe Awaka proud, but as with Vescovi I found myself more excited by little things.
Through two years at Tennessee, Aidoo’s registered a total of 19 possessions being utilized as the roll man in ball-screen sets, per Synergy. That feels low, but I don’t know that the true number is extremely higher or anything. Tennessee doesn’t run a ton in the first place, and when they did in 2022-23, Olivier Nkamhoua and Josiah-Jordan James got the majority of possessions as the screener. This two-point effort is reliant on a +1 pocket pass by Dilione, but when I’ve seen Aidoo in these sets in the past he’s appeared indecisive or not terribly interested in rolling to the rim. This time feels a little different; there’s aggression in this that I haven’t seen a ton of before. We’ll see if it makes it to November, but this is encouraging.
On the defensive end, Aidoo made this play that made me smile quite a bit:
This is a pretty aggressive decision by the Lithuanian guard trying to find an open shooter, but against a smaller defender or someone with worse reaction time you can see how it would work. Aidoo reads the guard’s eyes perfectly, baits him into the cross-court pass, and picks it off with one hand. It’s like having a 6’11” safety as the center, man.
Work to do: J.P. Estrella (-3.5)
Lest it feels like I’m picking on either of Estrella or Jefferson overly so in this article, both had some quality moments during these three games. Of course, they each had several moments that reminds you why Tennessee’s most likely rotation come January includes neither player. I struggled a good bit to find anything Estrella did notably well on defense in this one. He got credited with a steal, but that was created by another player and the ball simply happened to end up in his hands. 14 minutes, no defensive rebounds, 3 fouls, no blocks…tough day at the office for the young guy.
Here Estrella gets confused on a ball-screen coverage. He and D.J. Jefferson get confused on who’s covering who. Jefferson could be assigned a demerit here, but technically if they’re switching as seems apparent, it’s Estrella’s man that is left wide open. Knecht switches to the screener and should be handing off ball-handler defense duties to Jefferson. Either Estrella doesn’t know this coverage yet or lost focus. I can’t say either’s a great answer.
That’s sub-optimal to begin with, but it’s made far worse by Estrella fouling the shooter - a guy who went 9-for-35 from deep in the two high school seasons I could find registered to him - and handing Lithuania a three-shot opportunity in a game Tennessee is leading by 27 points. Not ideal. Positive: it’s a freshman and he’ll do that a lot less when Tennessee needs him.
Full player grades:
Santiago Vescovi: +5.5 (+3.5 offense, +2 defense)
Jonas Aidoo: +5 (+2.5 offense, +2.5 defense)
Freddie Dilione V: +4 (+5.5 offense, -1.5 defense)
Jahmai Mashack: +3.5 (+1.5 offense, +2 defense)
Jordan Gainey: +3 (+3.5 offense, -0.5 defense)
Tobe Awaka: +2 (+2.5 offense, -0.5 defense)
Josiah-Jordan James: +1.5 (-1 offense, +2.5 defense)
Dalton Knecht: +0.5 (+3 offense, -2.5 defense)
D.J. Jefferson: +0.5 (+1 offense, -0.5 defense)
J.P. Estrella: -3.5 (-0.5 offense, -3 defense)
GAME 3: Tennessee 97, A.S. Stella Azzurra 51
MVP: Santiago Vescovi (+9.5)
This was the second-best individual score of the weekend; it was not really a surprise. Of the three games this was Tennessee’s best start-to-finish performance by some margin. Friend of the Substack Grant Ramey gave this game a rough spread of Tennessee -18.5, and pretty much everyone I talked to expected it to be more competitive than the Lithuania U21 games were. All of us were wrong. Perhaps Stella Azzurra is just that bad. I wouldn’t know.
Alternately, perhaps Vescovi is just that good compared to their roster. Vescovi had a tremendous all-around game on both ends of the court. I’m not sure 12 points on 4-10 shooting really gets that across, but he had 8 assists in this one and easily could’ve had 10+. This game was a nice reminder of how Vescovi’s gone from Chaotic Good to Just A Shooter to Best Player to Yes All-SEC Once Again. This pass is just so good (31:15).
That requires rapid-fire decision-making, and at the camera angle provided the easier pass to make would be a lob to Jefferson. To get that off in the slim window provided and to turn it into a 4-on-3 situation is a veteran play to the core.
But what really stood out here is probably the single best play of the Italy trip: a legitimate Charles Woodson interception of a deep ball followed by a pass while falling down directly to Tobe Awaka, which creates a fast-break opportunity for two points. It’s a shame this sequence happened in an August exhibition game seen by a few thousand people online and not in a February SEC game seen by a million. It’s one of the more absurd things I’ve seen a player do in orange (19:20):
Again: August exhibition game against overwhelmed opponent where the team is ~26 minutes of game time away from an Italian dinner and he is sacrificing his body like this for two points. That’s why everyone loves him.
Runner-up: Jordan Gainey (+9)
Of Tennessee’s main rotation I don’t think anyone did better stock-wise than Gainey did in Italy. I figured Gainey was a very clear, very distant #9 in the rotation come SEC play if not #10. That may still be the case, but a player I thought wouldn’t have much to him on defense is perfectly fine at it while having one of the more beautiful shot releases we’ve ever seen in Knoxville. I like Gainey’s decision-making a lot, both on- and off-ball, and that stroke is just a delight (1:32).
Gainey was the best defender on the floor in this game, too, which came as a serious surprise. Given that he was more or less acceptable in the other two I think that’s likely a positive sign, but I still believe his main value-add for Tennessee are the threes. Very capable of hitting 5+ from deep in a game this winter.
Work to do: Not anyone, really? But Freddie Dilione (+1.5)
This is a nitpick, as Tennessee was pretty much stellar start-to-finish in this one. Dilione did have some freshman hiccups throughout, however, and I do wish he’d get lost less frequently on defense. Then again I remember having the same November worries about both Julian Phillips and Kennedy Chandler, both of whom were obviously more than fine by season’s end defensively.
Full player grades:
Santiago Vescovi: +9.5 (+5.5 offense, +4 defense)
Jordan Gainey: +9 (+4 offense, +5 defense)
Josiah-Jordan James: +7 (+2.5 offense, +4.5 defense)
Jonas Aidoo: +6 (+1 offense, +5 defense)
Tobe Awaka: +6 (+3.5 offense, +2.5 defense)
Dalton Knecht: +5 (+3.5 offense, +1.5 defense)
Jahmai Mashack: +3 (+1 offense, +2 defense)
Freddie Dilione V: +1.5 (+3 offense, -1.5 defense)
D.J. Jefferson: +1 (-0.5 offense, +1.5 defense)
J.P. Estrella: +0.5 (+1 offense, -0.5 defense)
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS OF TENNESSEE
This is already 3,000 words deep, so I don’t know that I need to add much more. Tennessee kinda looks like Tennessee but more balanced? It would’ve been nice to see Zakai Zeigler available to see what everything will look like come December, but even so it’s hard to envision the offense not being quite a bit better versus last year’s. Even being top-30 nationally (finished #64 last year) would be a positive change of pace; I think they can finish top-25.
On the opposite side of the ball, I think Tennessee’s probably staring down a small step back defensively, but in the sense that they might only be one of the 6-10 best units nationally instead of the very best. Some of Tennessee’s mistakes in Italy can be chalked up to a relatively low-intensity affair, but some are structural; Knecht and Dilione both have to improve on the defense end by January. Still, what I’ve seen seems pretty good. The analytical expectations of Tennessee being one of the 5-10 best teams in the nation feels more or less on point.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS OF EACH PLAYER
This is ranked by their overall grading in Italy via my haphazard system, so your mileage my vary.
Santiago Vescovi (+18; +11.5 offense, +6.5 defense) remains Santiago Vescovi, aka Tennessee’s best player when at full health and not battling a shoulder injury. I don’t think his stock really changed meaningfully here; he just looks like himself and that’s all anyone needed to see. If anything seeing a moderate return of his creative passing game was cool.
Jahmai Mashack (+17.5; +5.5 offense, +12 defense) rode the high of Game 1 to second overall. He wasn’t the most consistent player on the trip by any means, but in every game he did at least one thing that made me stop the video and say “that’s your Defensive Player of the Year.” Mashack remains a somewhat limited offensive player but an improvement in shooting could really, really aid his career. I’m standing by my take that he’s the best perimeter defender I’ve ever seen in Knoxville.
Jonas Aidoo (+14.5; +4.5 offense, +10 defense) may or may not be a better rim protector than Yves Pons by the time he finishes at Tennessee, but the fact it’s a question I have to ponder even for a second is of interest. Aidoo had multiple Oh My God plays in this series that I’ll either post on twitter or save for the season preview. I remain underwhelmed by him offensively, and a fair chunk of his positives came on well-set screens or rebounds.
Tobe Awaka (+13.5; +9 offense, +4.5 defense) has the grade here that likely requires the most explanation. Awaka as an offensive player has learned how to post up well, but that alone doesn’t explain a ton. It’s more that Awaka’s functions within the offense - setting screens properly, knowing where to be at what time, etc. - look like they’ve taken a serious step forward. Of the +9 here he accumulated at least +6 of those positives on offensive rebounds. In-season I rarely clip OREBs because a lot of them are bounce-dependent but Awaka’s reads of where a ball will end up is almost Rodman-esque. I can’t believe he was ranked as a recruit alongside guys who went to Murray State and St. Thomas.
Freddie Dilione V (+13.5; +14.5 offense, -1 defense) is going to be your leading scorer this year assuming he plays enough minutes. Dilione has the on-court vision for scoring Tennessee severely lacked last year. It’s like having a taller version of Chandler in some ways, though I actually like Dilione a lot more as a shooter and obviously less as a ball-handler. Even with the poor defensive grade here a lot of it could be chalked up to basic freshmen mistakes that Tennessee can work out of him by SEC play. I feel comfortable predicting that he’ll have the highest number of plays by any Vol this year in the flimsy You Stood Up Out of Your Seat, Involuntarily category I’ve created.
Jordan Gainey (+13.5; +8 offense, +5.5 defense) really did steal the show in a lot of ways. I found myself really impressed by something he did in all three games, and pretty much every time he got on the court he was doing something right. Tennessee maybe stole one here? Time will tell I suppose.
Josiah-Jordan James (+13; +3 offense, +10 defense), alongside the bottom two in our rankings, might’ve had his stock fall a little. James remains a tremendous defender that can guard any position, and that alone will earn him a lot of playing time. The problem with giving James a lot of playing time is this: he will take his 8-12 shots, but you have no idea if he’s going to score 4 points or 18. It’s entirely dependent on if the threes go in, and we’ve got four years of data showing the threes don’t go in as often as one would like. He went 3-15 from deep in Italy and it was frankly a little crushing to watch. For a fifth-year senior who would 100% be on a G-League roster had he stayed in the Draft, he had several shocking offensive decisions involving bad passes or incorrect reads. He’s capable of turning it around, but only time will tell.
Dalton Knecht (+8; +10.5 offense, -2.5 defense) is probably underrated by my grading. I find it hard to figure out how much credit the recipient of a great pass should receive for taking a wide open shot, and Knecht was not required to do much self-creation in this one like he had to at Northern Colorado. Still, I didn’t chart him for a single negative offensive play in Italy. That alone has serious value to Tennessee, and the spacing he brings on offense will help Tennessee out immensely. He also had more negative plays than anyone in the rotation on defense, so that also checks out with the scouting report. Gotta get up to speed there.
D.J. Jefferson (+0.5; +1 offense, -0.5 defense) does not feel ready to me. There’s an amazing athlete in there, one who can leap out of a gym, and his third quarter against Stella Azzurra was what I’d been hoping to see at any point prior to it over the weekend. The athletic side is just that, though. Jefferson got lost on defense several times, had some brutal turnovers, and remains very iffy as a shooter. There’s a good basketball player somewhere in here and I’m hoping it’s unlocked sooner rather than later.
J.P. Estrella (-3.5; +0 offense, -3.5 defense) is a freshman that we can talk more about in the future. Estrella has real potential and I loved a good bit of what he did on the offensive end. Get him in the weight room and you’ll like him a lot more on both ends.