Over the Christmas holidays, Tennessee's Dane Bradshaw managed to slip home to Memphis for a few days.

He found time to go to a Grizzlies' game at FedExForum and admired the way they played, particularly Shane Battier.



"He's the ultimate team player," said Bradshaw, a former White Station High star, who'll lead the 11-2 Vols into Memphis on Wednesday night to play the No. 4 Tigers. "Every team would love to have him."

Coaches around the Southeastern Conference are saying the same thing about Bradshaw, a junior. When they learn that Bradshaw has made the transformation from a 6-4 point guard to a starting power forward — a drastic position change on any level of basketball — they can't wait to see him in person.

When they do, they observe a player they hate to play against, but someone they'd love to have on their team. Someone, like a Battier, who plays with intelligence, toughness, fearlessness and unselfishness.

"Whether it's on film or live, you just appreciate Dane on how he fills up a stat sheet in other ways than scoring," Tennessee first-year coach Bruce Pearl said. "As good as everybody else is playing for us, he's important per possession. He gets steals, he has the best assist-to-turnover ratio in the SEC, he rebounds, he can handle the ball and he hits threes."

Look at his numbers, and you can partially see what Bradshaw brings to a team. His 6.4 scoring average is inconsequential.

He leads the team in rebounds (6 per game) and assists (4.5). He can have an impact on a game with scoring, like his career-high 14 points in a 76-69 win at South Carolina on Jan. 8, or with his passing and rebounding, like his eight points and eight assists in an 89-76 victory over Georgia on Wednesday.

The latter was a typical night at the office for Bradshaw. In the second half of a tight game, Bradshaw took his larger defender out on the perimeter, beat him off the dribble and hit 3-point shooters C.J. Watson and Chris Lofton for open looks. On the defensive end against forwards 6-8 and 6-9 that outweighed him by 25 to 30 pounds, he outworked them in the post, denying them the ball and then blocking out on rebounds.

"I feel like I'm a physical player, so it's somewhat home to me," said Bradshaw, who got the foundation for his body-banging style as the youngest of four kids taking a pounding from his older siblings in backyard pickup games. "I love the challenge of keeping a bigger man off the glass, knowing that even if I didn't get the rebound, that my man didn't get it, either. It's going back to the fundamentals you were taught as a kid. Those things don't change."

Even before Pearl suspended starting power forward Jemere Hendrix before this season for an altercation with a UT football player, he had thought of moving Bradshaw from point guard to power forward.

"I put guys in positions based on who they can cover," Pearl said. "Even when I looked at (forward Stanley) Asumnu, who's bigger and taller than Dane, I thought Dane was better guarding inside and Stanley better guarding outside."

Bradshaw's teammates never doubted that he could make the drastic transition from running the show as the point guard to trading elbows as a power forward.

"If you've seen Dane in the weight room, you know he's a lot stronger than he looks," Lofton said. "He's so versatile, I really think he could play any position on the floor."

Vols' center Major Wingate loves having Bradshaw in the paint.

"Dane's got some of the best post moves on the team," Wingate said. "But as well as he passes the ball, it's exciting for me and extra buckets for everybody. It's almost like having two point guards on the floor."

Bradshaw had little problem accepting his new role. It meant more playing time and being in the middle of the action, instead of spending most of his time on the perimeter. He has responded by playing with such passion that he has become a target on the road.

At South Carolina, where he hit a key 3-pointer late and led the team in rebounding, Bradshaw told fans who were heckling him that they weren't very good hecklers, laughing afterward it was "easy to pick out the white guy." When he saluted the hecklers as the clock ran out, they answered with obscene gestures.

On Saturday in an 88-74 loss at LSU when Bradshaw hit a second-half 3-pointer to cut LSU's lead to seven points, he screamed and gestured at the LSU student section. They booed him the rest of the game every time he touched the ball.

Pearl had fun with it. When he put Bradshaw back in the game late in the second half with the crowd booing, he raised Bradshaw's hand like he'd just won a heavyweight championship.

Most coaches are like Memphis' John Calipari, who admires Bradshaw's grit.

"He's a wonderful young man, and a terrific basketball player, just an absolute competitor," Calipari said. "Whatever he has in his body, he gives. And as coaches, you just want guys like that. He's been a good player for them, and he's done everything they've asked."

Bradshaw said there's only one person he has to satisfy at the end of the day.

"At times the way I play can be overlooked," said Bradshaw, who helped White Station to three Class AAA state championships, the last in 2003 when he was named the Tennessee Gatorade Player of the Year. "I'd love to score more, but my team doesn't need me to score to win.

"I don't expect a pat on the back. If it means that I don't get my picture in the paper the next day, that's fine. As long as my coach tells me after a game I did a good job, that's enough for me."

-- Ron Higgins: 529-2525

Staff reporter Gary Parrish contributed to this story.