November 7: #11 Tennessee 75, Tennessee Tech 43 (1-0)
November 13: Colorado 78, #11 Tennessee 66 (1-1)
I have no idea how this works in the COVID/post-COVID world, because I don’t go to a ton of concerts. But: bands used to do this thing where they’d schedule out 50 shows in 70 days or whatever. They would come to your city, then they would go to a city three hours away, then another city four hours away. Depending on the band and the tightness of said band, the road can take a toll on you. It can stretch, compound, warp, and crumble. It is capable of many things.
I am no musician; I am merely someone who’s somehow convinced others my words are of some strange use. But I have stayed in a Holiday Inn, mister, and I have read many a band memoir and seen a couple dozen live shows. Sometimes, those shows were spectacular things, ones that I would never forget. Sometimes, the bands are just…off. Missed notes, wrong words, restarting the songs. It is what it is. But when you’re on, you’re really freaking on.
Every good or even great group is capable of an off night. It happens, because life is not a consistent straight line. There are ebbs and flows. The Beatles got pelted with coins at a gig in 1962 then became the Beatles. My beloved Ween melted down in front of everyone then reunited. The Deerhunter guy threatens to play “My Sharona” for three hours, or threatens to cut off his own finger. The Replacements got banned from SNL for being too drunk, which is a serious accomplishment for that show. Ask two different people about the Bob Dylan shows they’ve attended and you are guaranteed to get two wildly different responses.
Sometimes, to make it family-friendly, it happens.
The test then becomes if the off night becomes the norm. If you keep coming in on the wrong bass note, if your drummer’s just too fast for everyone, if the guitarist loses disinterest, if the vocalist somehow keeps forgetting the lyrics he wrote three months ago, then that’s a problem. But generally, professionals are professionals for a reason, and they recover. Some aren’t cut for it; others are.
What matters is the tightness. Do you look like you belong with these people? Are you playing together, not at each other? Are you emphasizing each other’s strengths, rather than stepping out on your own? Do you know when to step up? Do you know when to step back? Off-hand excellence can be real, but for many, it comes more of study and practice. You work. You work with one another; you do everything you can to pull off the best show possible. Not every night is perfect, but you try. There is joy in the work, and so on.
To project Tennessee basketball’s shortcomings onto this idea of them being a band some people paid $50 to see and they couldn’t remember the words to “Happy Birthday” much less “Penny Lane” is probably a bit much. Then again, this would be a boring newsletter if it colored within the lines and didn’t stray very far.
If you think of these guys as band members, I promise it does make sense. Maybe everyone’s a little off right now because they had to replace a couple people. They’re still learning some of the songs. Whatever the case may be, this clearly is far from a finished product. If they’re able to tighten up and work with each other, they’ll form into the product that they look capable of being on paper: another top 10 team. If they don’t, well, they’re probably still capable of some pretty excellent nights.
There are real problems. Zakai Zeigler, the drummer in this bizarre scenario, is wildly off-beat and is trying to do far too much. Santiago Vescovi cannot hit the right notes. Olivier Nkamhoua won the tryout but hasn’t stepped into the limelight just yet. The only guys who’ve acquitted themselves well are Josiah-Jordan James and Tyreke Key, coincidentally the two oldest and most experienced guys on the roster. It’s generally far from ideal when you bring in a guy you’d planned on giving zero minutes (Tobe Awaka) to learn a new song on the fly. All of this adds up to one of the worst shooting days in program history, and perhaps the worst loss of the Rick Barnes era. It’s bad, but there’s a lot of road to go.
This is a long season, and this is the post after game 2 of a 31-game regular season. Given Tennessee’s penchant for an occasional non-conference stinker (Villanova last year, Wisconsin 2019), I think I’ll wait a few more weeks before I commence freaking out. Things are not great right now, but this is the same team that beat Michigan State in a scrimmage and smoked #2 Gonzaga in one barely two weeks ago. The tour has just started, and there’s many more dates to go to grow as a group and tighten up.
The Notes section of the weekly recap is cancelled today; frankly I am very tired and short on time this week. We’ll get into it more next Monday.
Appreciate the Rilo Kiley reference. We'll be fine (I think).