Georgia 78 Tennessee 63 - Vols hit the wall
by Will Shelton on Jan 23, 2010 7:34 PM EST
in Tennessee Volunteer Basketball
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PrintCameron Tatum and Melvin Goins both saw action today, meaning Tennessee's run of playing six scholarship players and three walk-ons is over. Also over is the subsequent win streak, as Georgia ambushed the Vols 78-63, picking up their first win over Tennessee since 2004.
The loss is certainly not the responsibility of Tatum or Goins, who played mostly garbage minutes at the end. The greatest burden falls on Tennessee's interior defense, where the Vols surrendered countless uncontested dunks, were outrebounded 35-20, and allowed Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie to shoot a combined 17 of 24 for 40 points.
Wayne Chism returned from a scary looking knee injury early, but was never on his game, finishing with only 6 points on 3 of 10 shooting. And a Tennessee team lauded for its depth found no quality beyond their top players today: J.P. Prince had only 4 points, Skylar McBee went 0-3 beyond the arc, and Renaldo Woolridge and Josh Bone both finished with goose eggs. The Vols got solid play from their backcourt (19 from Scotty Hopson, 11 from Bobby Maze), but in the SEC they're going to need more than that.
Down 15 at halftime, the Vols failed to take advantage of several opportunities in the first three minutes of the second half, instead matching Georgia turnover for turnover. As a result, the Vols got within a dozen at 43-31, but would get no closer as the Dawgs ran away. Georgia shot 56.3% from the floor and 7 of 12 from beyond the arc, while no one from Tennessee outside Scotty Hopson could hit a three: Hopson was 3 for 6, the rest of the team was 0 for 10. The Vols never found the spark to turn things around, and Georgia was more than willing to stay in front.
How much do we read into this? Much bigger answers are coming in the next week, as the Vols have two home dates with Vanderbilt (4-0 in the SEC) and Florida. If Tennessee takes care of business there, all will be well. But if those two exploit Tennessee in the same manner, the Vols could go from the top ten to .500 in the SEC in a heartbeat.
There's a ton of basketball left to be played, and plenty of heart still left in this team. For starters, Tennessee has to come out of the gate better - in all four conference games, the Vols have dug a hole for themselves in the first ten minutes. Tennessee must play inspired basketball for all 40 minutes to win with this lineup, not just once they get going.
Georgia will move on to continue to figure out if they're a good team or not, now 1-3 in the SEC but competitive every night. Tennessee must move on as well to a big, big week at Thompson-Boling. Was this a minor slip-up or a definitive wall to this team's progress? We'll find out next week.
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Bruce stole a couple (Kansas and Ole Miss) but the kids gave one back today
That was UGA-ly. The good news is that a road loss hurts less than a home loss – even if it is to GA.
Georgia is better coached this year and they will cause teams problems as the season progresses.
This does beg a few questions:
Where is the Vols’ offense going to come from?
When will Scotty Hopson decide he needs to just take over a game?
JP the Matador returned today. He was beaten routinely off the dribble. Someone threw him a bad pass and he showed no desire to hustle after the GA player. He also fussed at Kenny Hall on a miscommunication (lob play) and the outnumbered Vols were scored on.
Will Chism be able to walk tomorrow? That hyper-extension on the knee was brutal to watch on slow motion. I am amazed that he isn’t gone for the season. Yikes.
Will we be tough enough mentally to bring it every night? In today’s game, there’s plenty of blame to go around – as we didn’t really play with energy except for spurts in the second half. We were stone cold and GA hit everything. Let’s hope we bounce back because there’s a tough stretch coming up with LSU, Vandy and Florida (not in order).
Love the press Bruce is getting for how he handled the Tyler Smith Brian Williams deal. He’s a great representative for the university. If we get to 20+ wins, this will be one of his better coaching jobs yet.
Go Vols (anyway).
Nicely done, Will
You’ve authored very fair and reasonable pregame and postgame writeups, for which I am most appreciative.
As you wrote before the game, Georgia had been competitive in each of its first three SEC games and the “Fox Hounds” were due. I know you hate that the win, when it came, came against your team, but Mark Fox has this program headed in the right direction, and we’ll see in the next couple or three seasons just how high he can take a Georgia program that (let’s face it) has historically been the weakest in a league that has not historically been known as a basketball conference.
Bruce Pearl still has the Volunteers performing at a very high level and this loss will not be as embarrassing in retrospect as it may appear right now. At the end of the day, the Bulldogs had a particularly good game, but Tennessee is the better team.
I hope Will Chism is all right. Good luck the rest of the way.
Go 'Dawgs!
I think Fox was a good hire
Either this year or next, Georgia is going to make real noise
by Will Shelton on Jan 23, 2010 8:06 PM EST up reply actions
It won't be this year . . .
. . . although the Hoop Dogs clearly are improving. At this point, all we’re looking for is progress, and we’re seeing that.
Right now, Georgia doesn’t have the bench to make any real noise, but you’re right: Mark Fox was a good hire. I don’t know how high the ceiling is on this program (although it’s probably lower than I’d like to think), but Coach Fox is going to find out within the next couple or three years.
Go 'Dawgs!
I think Georgia would actually be in position to make a little noise THIS year
if the conference schedule had not been so brutal at the start: Dawgs play 5 of the top 6 teams in the league in their first six games with four on the road.
This team is greatly improved just since the non-conference schedule, though. I was excited about the hire right away: If Mark Fox could win at Nevada and recruit NBA-level players there, he could win and recruit anywhere.
Here’s hoping UT takes down KY and the Dawgs finish with a .500 or better conference record. Go Dawgs!
One of the most incredible endings I've ever seen in Florida/South Carolina
Devan Downey (36 points) made a crazy length-of-the-court drive and score with 5.1 left, but Chandler Parsons buried a three at the buzzer to give Florida the win
I think this kind of loss was coming
We really got lucky to beat Ole Miss last week, and had to gut out an ugly win in Tuscaloosa Tue. night. I think we are still okay though. If you look at the upcoming schedule, Wednesday’s game against Vandy is a real swing game. They are 4-0, but to me we should take care of business at home. If we win on Wednesday then the next three games are all very winnable. We have Florida at home on Sunday, and I just do not see us losing to them at TBA. Then we go to LSU, who is currently 0-5 in the league and just dropped back to back home games to Ole Miss and Auburn. Then we come home to face Carolina, a team we should also beat at TBA.
I think it is pretty important to be at the worse 6-2 coming out of that stretch, because after that we have a murderous week that takes us to Vandy and Kentucky. Hopefully today was just an aberration against a team that was clearly more ready to play than us, but our lack of 3 point shooting today is worrisome, because we are just so much more dangerous when we shoot the three. I still think we are a strong team, but today looked a lot like the USC loss. Hopefully the orange blazer will have us ready to play Wednesday night.
It's simple Cubs in the spring and summer, Vols in the fall and winter.
Well...
I just got through watching this one on DVR. Ugg. Okay, we did not play well — it reminded me a lot of the USC game….like the little girl with the curl, when we are bad, we are horrid. So, having said that, and knowing it wasn’t the difference in the game, did anyone else find the officiating in this game to be awful? Like, really bad? Just wondering if I was just seeing it through orange-tinted glasses.
"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." A. Bartlett Giamatti
It sure wasn't good
I don’t know for sure if the officiating really went for UGA, but there were some head-scratchers. They really let some obvious hard fouls go, and followed them up with bizarre ticky-tack calls. They were letting the guys play a pretty good bit, which did lead to some entertaining offense, but the officiating was definitely sporadic.
Even though I bought tickets from the UGA Athletic Assocation, I was completely surrounded by UT fans, so props to y’all for traveling well. Everybody around me was complaining about the officiating as well, so it wasn’t just you. I almost felt sorry for the guys behind me, who chose this as their one road trip for the year. All they got was a blowout loss, and a cold and rainy day in Athens.
I hope Chism is OK, that looked awful.
by sugar hill dawg on Jan 24, 2010 9:59 AM EST up reply actions
that was probably worst officiating I remember seeing in a long time
it was also our second worst performance of year so that didn’t help but that was a terribly called game. Those two back to back BS calls where they said it was out on us and then the said hopson when across the half court line after possessing it were garbage. Refusing to correct the shot clock was bordering on flagrant and a lot of the fouls/traveling they called then decided not to call were atrocious. As painful as it was to watch us play like that, the black and whites made me almost turn the game off
Living in Alabama is like living 50 years in the past, they are still just as racist, just as educated, the state constitution forbids any kind of public transportation, and all they can talk about is Bear Bryant
you are right
the officiating was terrible. i’m not saying it would have ultimately impacted the outcome of the game, but it was bad. last year there was a lot of bad officiating, and up until this point i thought that it had been ok, until this one…
by golfballs03 on Jan 24, 2010 11:55 PM EST up reply actions
Agree the officials blew it but
it was probably due to boredom as the game was not in doubt. Bad calls matter a whole lot less when we are down 20….
I am glad that BP “called” the zebras on it. I am also glad he coaches the same way whether we are down 20 or ahead by 10. But, honestly, I can’t get that motivated about the poor officiating when our play was so uncharacteristically “foul”.
We’re going to need to look a a whole lot more like Kansas than Georgia over the next 10 days. And, Vandy & Kentucky can both expose us inside with players even better than the Georgia post players. I hope it’s not a tough week.
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