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Strange: One for the road? Sounds good to Pearl
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When I Googled the phrase "there's nothing like a ... " here's what turned up: a dame, a good book, a fresh start, a good cup of coffee, a child's smile, the real thing.
If I asked the SEC basketball coaches, they would answer in unison:
There's nothing like a road win.
"Road wins are sweet,'' Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said Monday. "The teams at the top of the divisions are going to be the ones who are going to be able to win some games away from home.''
Pearl and the Vols have two chances to do so this week. Tonight, it's Alabama, where Tennessee has the burden of history to overcome. Saturday, it's Mississippi State, the only undefeated team in league play.
A year ago, the Vols started 0-6 on the SEC road. Breaking through at Arkansas and Georgia to close the season earned valuable credibility for NCAA tournament seeding.
This year, Tennessee has the most convincing SEC road win yet in the early going, 80-56 at South Carolina. That, however, is countered by a humbling 72-66 loss at Kentucky.
Tonight, the Vols have to win at Alabama to keep pace. SEC division leaders Florida and Mississippi State have won in Tuscaloosa.
The young Gators also won at South Carolina. Mississippi State and Arkansas also have two road wins .
"There are road wins to be had out there,'' said Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, "but they're going to be difficult.''
Nobody knows better than Stallings. Vandy opened 16-0, but has since lost three of four games. What's wrong with the Commodores?
The road, that's what.
"I'm sure,'' Stallings said, "that you could take a lot of teams and send 'em to Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida and they would struggle in those venues with those teams."
In The Zone: Alabama unveiled a new 1-2-2 zone defense Saturday in a 97-77 win over Auburn. Well, it was sort of new.
"We didn't reinvent a zone defense, I can promise you that,'' said coach Mark Gottfried.
"We made some adjustments in our zone. Auburn is a team that shoots the ball so well we tried to get out to the shooters. Game by game, you've got to do some things like that.''
Gottfried also moved Brandon Hollinger into the starting lineup at point guard ahead of freshman Rico Pickett. Good move. Hollinger was 6-of-9 on 3-pointers and Pickett scored a career-high 17 off the bench.
Not So Free: The Vols have shot less than 50 percent at the free-throw line in two of their past three games and three times total this year. Only the Ohio State game (74-69) was close enough to cause concern.
Against Georgia, five different players had an 0-for-2 moment at the stripe. No wonder UT ended up 12-of-27 (44.4 percent).
The prevailing wisdom is that clunking free throws will cost the Vols a game here or there. This might not be the week, however. Alabama (59.2) and Mississippi State (60.3) rank even lower than the Vols (64.4) in SEC free-throw accuracy.
It might not be the losing edge at Memphis next month, either, The Tigers, at 58.6 percent, didn't earn their No. 1 ranking at the stripe.
Last year, poor free-throw shooting loomed large in five Tennessee defeats, including three in a row: 40 percent in an 82-81 loss at Vanderbilt; 45.5 percent in a 68-66 loss at Ohio State; 46.7 percent in an 83-80 loss at Auburn. The others were postseason, 60 percent in an overtime SEC tournament loss to LSU and 47.1 percent in the 85-84 Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State.
Trey Amigos: Lee Humphrey, the NCAA tournament's all-time 3-point king with 47, is home in Maryville after being cut from his team in Greece. According to The Gainesville Sun, Humphrey is looking for another European gig but might be in Thompson-Boling Arena one week from tonight to cheer for his Florida Gators.
UT's Chris Lofton has 21 treys in five NCAA games. After breaking the SEC career record at Kentucky last Tuesday, Lofton added seven more Saturday against Georgia to get to 374.
The Last Word: Pat Bradley, former SEC 3-point career-record-holder from Arkansas, said to the Lexington Herald-Leader after watching Lofton pass him on ESPN:
"It's one thing to get your record broken, but he's just going to destroy it, smash it.''
Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276 or strange2@knews.com.
© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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Posted by pdhuff on January 29, 2008 at 6:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Beat Bama. In anything, anytime. Pearl and Co. in beautiful Tuscaloosa. Wow.
Posted by TurboFan on January 29, 2008 at 9:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What is the NCAA record for treys?
Posted by rbhobbs73 on January 29, 2008 at 10:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
457 - J.J. Reddick - Duke
Posted by drone on January 29, 2008 at 10:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Thunderstorms rolling into T-town about 8PM tonight.
Posted by johnlg00 on January 29, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
That free-throw shooting is a really weak link for us and a major sore spot for me. For a clue as to why we are so bad, watch closely to see how many of our guys take the ball to the opposite side of the head from the shooting hand. That automatically means that the ball's trajectory moves across the line of vision, not right down it, and that motion imparts side spin to the ball. Imagine trying to shoot a rifle accurately if the stock is against the right shoulder but then using the left eye to sight with! Crews and Prince (and Ramar until fairly recently) are especially bad this way, but even Stephen Pearl does it and he is the son of the coach!
Posted by 55Vol on January 29, 2008 at 12:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
TDTN.... amen! FT do matter. Team % matters on the road...and in the tourney. Ask us against OSU last year. Sweet 16 is like going to the Outback Bowl.... good season but no championship. It takes rebounding, FT % and shooting % topped by great defense to win it all.
Posted by 98reax on February 2, 2008 at 11:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Right on target, john00, freebies should be like going to the bathroom. It's something you do without thinking. You do it many times a day, every day. You just don't miss. What's up with that? Do they get to the line and think about missing. If they do, they need some shrink sessions. It's like going into a game thinking you might lose. It should never happen, right? A great team can look really mediocre when they constantly miss free throws. There's so many players out there who have high 90s% at the line. What do they do to get so accurate? Why wouldn't a player do whatever it takes to perfect a foul shot? He's in the spotlight. Why in the world would he settle for a weakness there? There has to be a way we can fix this problem before tourney time. So many games are won or lost at the foul line.
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