Adams: Vols' stock rises with Pearl's record, recruits : govolsxtra.com

If all goes best for Tennessee basketball, signing a player of Scotty Hopson's caliber won't always be historic.

It was a big deal Wednesday. Sportswriter Mike Griffith drove to Hopkinsville, Ky., and hosted the News Sentinel's sports talk show from Hopson's high school Wednesday morning.

The event justified the attention.

This isn't business as usual for UT basketball. The Lady Vols are more apt to win a national championship than the Vols are to sign a McDonald's All-American. More McDonald's All-Americans transfer from Duke than sign with UT.

Hopson, a 6-foot-6 guard, is the first McDonald's All-American to sign with the Vols since Vincent Yarbrough in 1998.

Yarbrough averaged 13.7 points for his four-year career. Whether Hopson does more or less isn't as significant as his signing.

What's important is the continuation of a successful theme that seems so foreign to what was once a pedestrian program.

In Bruce Pearl's three years as head coach UT has won a single-season, school-record 31 games; been ranked No. 1 for the first time in history; made back-to-back Sweet 16s for the first time; and won an SEC regular-season championship.

Pearl had proved he could recruit. Now, he has proved he can recruit high school All-Americans. Moreover, he proved he can recruit them out-of-state and out of the grasp of an elite program.

UT couldn't beat Louisville in the Sweet 16 last month. But it beat out the Cardinals for a Kentucky native. That's heady stuff for a program that once had to hire the player's father to land a Kentuckian as sought-after as this one.

The makeover of UT basketball has been stunning. The suddenness of it doesn't necessarily mean it's temporary.

Before the Final Four, Louisville Courier-Journal sports columnist Rick Bozich polled a number of sportswriters on the top basketball programs in the country. His question: "If you were buying stock in 10 basketball programs, which 10 would you purchase and in what order?"

My ranking didn't vary drastically from the consensus, which had North Carolina at No. 1, followed by UCLA, Kansas, Duke, Florida, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, Memphis, and Georgetown.

I didn't agree with Duke, whose talent isn't what it used to be; Kentucky, where I'm not sure coach Billy Gillispie is a good fit; or Georgetown, where I'm not convinced John Thompson III is the next John Thompson.

My top-10 additions included UT at No. 10. A stretch? Maybe. But that's not one lone voice crying out for the home team. Enough other voters put the Vols in their top 10 for the program to rank 15th - behind Michigan State, Connecticut, Indiana and Ohio State, but ahead of such basketball notables as Arizona and Wisconsin.

UT basketball has a charismatic coach, an accomplished group of assistants, an up-tempo style of play that's fan and player friendly, and a huge arena that it routinely comes close to filling. It also has made a three-year run through the SEC that anyone outside of Kentucky would envy.

The Vols have won 77 games in three years under Pearl. Kentucky does that on a regular basis, but only three other SEC programs - Florida, Arkansas and LSU - have ever won more games in a three-year period.

Pearl did that, in part, with another coach's recruits. He also did it without a McDonald's All-American.

Signing an All-American doesn't mean you will win more games. It does mean you're more likely to sign another one.

And, as basketball investors will notice, it means your stock is on the rise.

Sports editor John Adams may be reached at 865-342-6284 or adamsj@knoxnews.com.