BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Arkansas has its 40 minutes of hell under former coach Nolan Richardson.

Florida began playing Billy Ball when current coach Billy Donovan took over.

First-year Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl has yet to coin a phrase for the uptempo style he plans to bring to the Vols this season.

After laboring through former coach Buzz Peterson's half-court sets, the players can embrace a new motto, something like: ''We're free.''

That's what it will feel like, as the Vols now have the green light to run and gun at will. In fact, it's required. Walking the ball up the floor might even get you a spot on the bench next to Pearl.

''With Buzz, we were more half-court,'' senior Stanley Asumnu said Thursday at SEC Media Days. ''We didn't really push the ball. He was like, 'let's work the shot clock down to like eight or nine seconds and then try to get something.' Coach Pearl is like, 'Get it up the floor.'

''You're free basically, just out there playing ball.''

It's basically the only way Pearl knows to play. As a disciple of coach Tom Davis at Boston College, Stanford and Iowa, Pearl became accustomed to coaching teams that applied full court pressure the entire game and looked to run at every opportunity.

It's a philosophy he took with him into a head coaching career that began at Division 2 Southern Indiana, where he never won less than 22 games and won the national championship in 1995.

Pearl caught the attention of Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton after guiding Wisconsin-Milwaukee to a Sweet 16 appearance in last year's NCAA Tournament a loss to eventual national runner-up Illinois, capping a 26-6 season.

''It's total chaos,'' is the way Pearl described his style. ''That would be the description. We are committed to up-tempo basketball. We will press 94 feet for 40 minutes.''

The Vols were picked to finish fifth in the six-team SEC Eastern Division. But that doesn't mean they have to live up to those expectations, Pearl said.

''There's two ways to approach it,'' he said. ''As a coach, you can either be real patient, hold the ball, play very passive defensively and see if you can kind of hang in there and maybe steal a game, or two. And that makes sense. But (if I do that) I'm sending my players and the people at Tennessee a big fat message that we are not good enough to compete in the SEC ... that's not how I want to build this program.

''We are going to be the aggressor. We are going to be the attacker. We are going to be more physical. There are some nights we're going to get run out of the house because of it. But we're going to recruit players that want to play that way. I think our players in the program right now will play better because of that.''

Pearl warns that, early on, what fans see on the floor might not be pretty.

''When I first came to Milwaukee, I remember dealing with the media and, boy, they thought it was sloppy and it was out of control and it was ugly,'' Pearl said. ''In some ways, they were right. But we practice at that pace and that tempo all the time, and it was a little sloppy.''

With players like senior point guard C.J. Watson and sophomore shooting guard Chris Lofton, Pearl is confident his style will catch on quickly, though. While it's not a unique brand of basketball in the SEC, it still will force opponents into extra preparations before facing the Vols.

''That's part of the reason why coach Davis always talked about why you should be different, because you are a tough preparation,'' Pearl said. ''By the same token, I'm sure the rest of the coaches are probably tired already hearing about this new style. We haven't invented anything, just copied from Nolan and Rick (Pitino) and Tom Davis and Jim Calhoun.''

After getting over the initial shock of Peterson's firing after a 14-17 season, Watson said it didn't take long for the veterans to embrace their new coach.

''I think I can do whatever I want within the framework of our offense,'' Watson said. ''Coach Pearl told me to go out there and play and just be myself. There's a lot of things I haven't really done in the past that I can do.''