Oakland 89 Tennessee 81 - The Work of Sisyphus
by Will Shelton on Nov 28, 2011 11:27 PM EST
in Tennessee Volunteer Basketball
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PrintMuch like Memphis in Maui, the Vols fell behind in the first half against Oakland in Rochester. The Golden Grizzlies made a ton of big shots and played with a ton of confidence in building a 14 point first half lead, which the Vols worked hard to battle back to seven.
Then the entire second half was an exercise in frustration. After Trae Golden made an immediate three to cut the lead to four, Oakland went back up six on a Travis Bader jumper. The next eleven minutes were all played with Oakland holding a lead of between five and ten points. When Kenny Hall scored to finally cut the lead to three with 8:32 to play, Reggie Hamilton responded with five straight points. And there it stayed the rest of the way, Oakland leading by no more than ten but no less than five for the remainder of the game. Every time the Vols pushed up the hill and got close, Oakland rolled them right back down. Never too far out of it for Tennessee to panic, never close enough for Oakland to panic.
And so an incredibly even second half (50-49 Oakland) was finished off by an incredible display of free throw shooting from the home team: 28 of 31, 90.3%, including 15 of 15 from their leading scorer Hamilton, who had 35 tonight. Tennessee was led by Jordan McRae's encouraging 25 and a solid performance by Cameron Tatum with 19, but it was never enough to get the lead, and the Grizzlies won by eight.
There were several moments in the second half where the Vols had their chances, including a particularly frustrating stretch with Oakland leading 54-49. The Vols stole the ball on consecutive possessions, only to have Wes Washpun miss a dunk and Jeronne Maymon keep it himself on a three-on-one and miss a layup. Trae Golden turned it over the following possession, then another point of emphasis emerged: Oakland's offensive rebounds, including one here by Ryan Bass to put them back up six. In that stretch between the twelve and eleven minute mark, the Vols had four chances to get closer than five but could not.
It was a Corey Petros offensive rebound that allowed Oakland to go back in front after the Vols cut it to three with 8:32 to play. And after a Cam Tatum three got it back to five with 3:02 to go, Petros and Drew Valentine both got offensive rebounds that led to a pair of free throws. Valentine got another one on the next possession that led to more free throws, and that was basically that.
It was an obvious trap game and one these inexperienced Vols may not have been mature enough to handle. But the rebounds were alarming - Oakland finished +11 despite the absence of their two best post players from last season - and the fact that this team lost by double digits to Alabama (who I know is good) and Arkansas (who I think might be) doesn't help.
Maui may have been a false alarm, and the NCAA Tournament is still a very, very long way away, only attainable one game at a time. We'll learn a lot more about this team at home on Saturday against Pittsburgh. I can understand why Tennessee lost to what I hope becomes the three-time Summit League Champions...but it goes down as another one in the loss column for a team that most of us believe will need wins on Selection Sunday.
Again, were we too optimistic or too hopeful to think the Vols could get there after Maui? Ask me again after Saturday. The Vols get four days between games and no additional travel, and that should help. This team will continue to mature, but if they're going to get where they want to go, they have to do so quick enough to start learning lessons in victories and not just defeats.
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On the plus side
they were friggin’ 28/31 from the line, it was a trap game, and they did beat Houston (on the road), who in turn beat Arkansas (on the road).
On the minus side. . . this schedule doesn’t have many wins on it. If we don’t grab hold of them when we can, things could get ugly. Gotta get back after it and see if we can steal one on Saturday.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 28, 2011 11:31 PM EST reply actions
When it rains in Vol Nation,
It pours.
"Do the Titans have a miracle left in them in what has been a magical season to this point? If they do, they need it now. Christie kicks it high and short. Gonna be fielded by Lorenzo Neal at the 25; he dishes it back to Wycheck; he throws it across the field to Dyson. 30, 40, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 5, endzone...touchdown, Titans! There are no flags on the field! It's a miracle! Tennessee has pulled a miracle! A miracle for the Titans!"
by TennesseeTyrants on Nov 28, 2011 11:33 PM EST reply actions
The Curse is in full force
Heck, it’s even rubbing off on the Lady Vols. Dave Hart…You have stepped in a big pile! I hope you brought your rain boots.
Before anyone says anything, I'm kidding ;)
!http://memegenerator.net/cache/instances/400x/11/11452/11727745.jpg
You would've thought..
Bruce Pearl organized the Oakland pre-game tailgate himself.
Despite the two wins, I think you guys will again be favored in the third game of the series. This was the biggest game in our building in eight years. A lot went right for us tonight – you guys shot below season avg. at the line, and we were by far at our best knocking down freebies. Sorry that some needed respect and exposure came at your guys’ hands again but maybe you can fill in on everyone how good Reggie Hamilton is. You guys will knock down more 3’s than you did tonight, I know that by watching your other games.
Good luck the rest of the season.
Thanks for stopping by...
Pretty impressive getting an opponent’s radio man on the site here. Good luck with the season and your career.
thanks
best of luck the rest of the season. Knock off a few more major conference teams so that people don’t look too askance at this one.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 10:18 AM EST up reply actions
I hereby formally submit RTT legislation for consideration and hopefully swift adoption
I propose a moratorium on the statistic of rebounding margin. To the extent that enforcement procedures must be promulgated to ensure that the moratorium is strictly adhered to, then I further support the establishment of an enforcement frameworks.
Why do I propose all this? Simple. Rebounding margin is a borderline meaningless statistic, and yet it has a buddy — offensive rebounding percentage — which is orders of magnitude more meaningful. The below article elaborates on this. I could have linked a slew of others.
http://www.basketballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=429
On top of all that, offensive rebounding percentage is not difficult to come up with. It takes no expertise in advanced mathematics. Indeed, our friends at statsheet are nice enough to just give it to us.
http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/2011/11/28/tennessee-81-oakland-89
Tennessee’s offensive rebounding percentage was 41.5%. So roughly 4 out of every 10 times we missed a shot, we got it back.
Oakland’s offensive rebounding percentage was 45.9%, which means that when Oakland missed a shot, Tennessee was still more likely to grab the ball than they were….but just barely.
Doesn’t that paint a better picture? Okay, that was a rhetorical question. It obviously paints a much much better picture.
Who is in favor of switching to offensive rebounding percentage and never again citing the #unicornstat that is rebounding margin?
Aside:
I had already decided to try to persuade Joel to stop using yards per game numbers in his game previews….because yards per play is just a way way better metric. And, in fact, I’d like to go even a step further and use Bill Connelly’s points per play metric, which is even better than yards per play. But we’re now fresh out of football games to preview. So I’ll just have to save that crusade for a later date.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 1:53 AM EST via mobile reply actions 1 recs
I prefer this for projections...
but I do like having the other stats available as it’s a quicker basis for comparison based on its ease of availability.
Ease of availability
1. go to statsheet.com
2. Click on college basketball
3. click on ‘scores’
4. find tennessee game and click on boxscore
5. Done.
That’s a trip to a website and then three clicks. Doesn’t get a ton easier than that.
And there are likely other sites that have this metric as well.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 2:55 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
46% to 41% doesn't seem like THAT huge of a gap, but maybe it's just because I'm not used to these stats
but perhaps the important part is just that they out-OREBed us at all, and that’s something that shouldn’t happen against a team like Oakland.
Either way, I was worried about our inside game all the way until Memphis. I will remain worried about our inside game at all times in which Jeronne Maymon doesn’t decide that he’s just doing everything himself
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 10:22 AM EST up reply actions
It's a reasonable sized gap, but more importantly
It indicates that we did a real bad job on the defensive boards. As a rule of thumb, an OR% of 50% is like AMAZING and not even sustainable. The best offensive rebounding team last season was Old Dominion, and they were at 45.3% for the year. Second best was Pitt at 42.7%.
We did fine on our end grabbing missed shots. But we did horrific on their end.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 10:36 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
One of the problems with rebound stats
is that they are wildly different from place to place. ESPN had Oakland +11, KNS had Oakland +3, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
OREB% is very handy, we’ve used it before especially in game previews. You can’t really stay “all stats are meaningful”, because I’d imagine few of us are interested in our record when facing other coaches who, like last night, changed from sweater vest to suit specifically for the occasion of playing us. But I do think rebounding margin has some merit, especially in this game when Oakland was without their two best interior players from a year ago.
by Will Shelton on Nov 29, 2011 11:10 AM EST up reply actions
/steps up on stats pulplit
I’m a broken record on this point, but stats only give you a place to look for explanations. They do not explain. In some cases, the explanation may be implicit, but even then the stat is not the explanation; it is the point that gets you looking in the right direction.
The problem is that explaining a stat takes far more work than generating a stat. In the case of Oreb% vs. rebounding margin, the Oreb% may be a little more true to the cause, but both tell you to look at how the two teams approach rebounding and what resources they have available. Did one team commit 4 players to rebound and one player as a safety valve? Did the other team commit only 2 players to rebound and 3 for a fast break?
Feel free to correct me on this, but the rebounding — no matter how you frame it — points to one thing: Tennessee was tired. Two long plane flights, a vacation in Hawaii, two very intense, emotional games, and a throwaway game for good measure, all in the last few days. Turning around and playing a good Oakland team is a lot to ask out of that, especially for people like Maymon who logged a lot of hard-played time on the court.
I think the same story is told in free throws, where Oakland’s number of attempts (not makes) is indicative of an opponent playing half a step behind. Also, a lot of the missed chances to close the score (e.g. easy layups) can happen when the legs aren’t quite there and the rhythm of the plays are not as they should be.
I’m a stats guy and I get into the whole “let’s find the best possible stat” game as much as anybody else, but a lot of people put way too much emphasis on perfecting stats when we really need more attention paid to the interpretation of the stats.
(I’m not at all knocking kidbourbon here. He has a good point. I’m making an entirely different one.)
by David Hooper on Nov 29, 2011 11:37 AM EST up reply actions
Our points are entirely consistent
I agree that stats are a means to an end. They are tools used to essentially tell a story about what did happen or what will happen. Divorced from this objective both good stats and bad stats alike are essentially worthless. They’re just tools sitting on a shelf.
But imagine one of those tools is a nail gun and another is a frying pan. When it comes time to build a garage to add onto my house and I need to nail a bunch of nails in order to get that done, the nail gun is going to be more of a help to me than the frying pan…unless physical fitness and muscle building is in fact my main objective.
Rebounding margin isn’t quite as bad as a frying pan…but it was just the first example I thought of.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 12:08 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Absolutely.
I agree that you should go for the most telling stats. Sometimes the cruder stats can be useful, though, especially if they’re easier to use in discussion. In this case, Oreb% isn’t really that unwieldy, but it does require a bit more math. Rebounding margin is a little bit easier at the conversational level, and if you’re ok with being a little back-of-envelope, it’s perfectly usable.
If I just have a loose nail on the back porch and a frying pan is in hand, I might not feel like unlocking the shed to get the nail gun. A quick whack, and I move on. ;-)
/twitches at thought of using a frying pan on a nail
by David Hooper on Nov 29, 2011 12:32 PM EST up reply actions
We won't be 11th out of 12 in the SEC. But we also won't be 2nd out of 12 in the SEC
Good efforts against Memphis and Duke were encouraging, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The Vols will climb to average this year because Zo is a good coach, the kids are working hard and we have modest (not zero) talent. If the kids stop working or are inconsistent for long stretches, we will look like the bottom-dwellers of the SEC. If they become more consistent and keep working and grow steadily throughout the season, we will look like the middle of the pack team that we are.
Anyone delusional enough to think that we will beat Kentucky this year needs to put down the Zo-Aid and walk away. Nor should we beat Bama, Vandy or Florida. But we may beat the weaker teams on the schedule – enough to stay out of the SEC basement, but not enough to make the NCAAs.
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
You been keeping up with Vandy this year?
I don’t have any reason to believe they are better than us.
Florida has played a bunch of terrible teams and one real good team. They lost to the real good team, but didn’t get destroyed, so the jury is still out.
Bama is looking pretty darn good, but I"m not ready to crown them this early.
Mississippi State is the second most talented team in the league. I really don’t love that we have both them and Bama on the road. MSU has tremendous upside (apologies to Jay Bilas), but their M.O. is usually that they are up and down. Hopefully we catch them on an off night.
UK should be playing in the NBA. Who is the worst NBA team this year? I want to see UK play them in an exhibition game.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 9:37 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
Mississippi State is probably the #2 game all season that I've just chalked up as a loss
with the #1 being Rupp.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 10:29 AM EST up reply actions
Vandy still has a lot of the same problems they did last year
Which is why I wasn’t comfortable with them being pre-season top 10. But, they have been playing the entire season without their best (only) interior player. The jury is certainly still out on the Commodores.
Tennessee fans roll their eyes when I talk about Vandy, Vandy fans become ill when I talk about Tennessee.
I should have included MSU as well.
And, I stand by Florida and Vandy as likely losses.
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
if we finish 6th in the SEC and on right side of the bubble
it’s a spectacular success, but not the kind that I think is completely insane. That said, it’s probably one that only has a 5-10% chance of happening.
If we finish 7th to 9th in the SEC and make the NIT, we’ve exceeded preseason expectations and should probably be commended, although I fully expect this to happen.
I’ll be upset with a finish of 10th to 12th.
And we could beat Kentucky, Bama, Vandy, Florida. This is basketball. Upsets are a lot more common than football. Remember that Kentucky team two years ago that finished a zillion and two? One of those two losses was to South Carolina, who finished 6-10 in the SEC and didn’t even sniff the tournament. But we’re not finishing #2 in the SEC, that’s for damn sure
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 10:28 AM EST up reply actions
co-sign most of this
I give us a bit better than 5-10% chances, but we’ll see how good Vandy and Florida are. I think Florida could be wildly overrated, and Vandy is already showing some signs of that, though they are minus a player right now.
Your point about upset in hoops is completely on point. The games are just really short. For a team to go undefeated they would have to either be in a bad conference (memphis rarely lost in the C-USA) or just historically crazy, like freaking Lew Alcindor in the paint type good. That 1976 Indiana didn’t have a Lew Alcindor and was in a very tough conference makes that season that much more amazing. But I bet they wouldn’t have done it had their been a three point line.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 10:46 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
"had there been a three point line"
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 10:47 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
yeah, I might've undersold the percentages a tad
but the general point is that we have a reachable but unlikely top goal, a reachable, likely, and still somewhat impressive, consolation, and. . . yeah let’s just not be where we were supposed to be. I do think our chances of being a bubble team are better than our chances of finishing 11th in the East.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 11:06 AM EST up reply actions
I should read further before commenting
D’oh…
Tennessee fans roll their eyes when I talk about Vandy, Vandy fans become ill when I talk about Tennessee.
I think you are insane if you believe this Vols team can beat Kentucky
BUT I hope you are right anyway.
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
can and will are very different
but I do believe we can. Trae Golden decides to be Reggie Hamilton for a night and Jordan McRae channels Scotty Hopson’s Pitt performance, and Jeronne Maymon shows out like he did against Memphis (all distinctly possible) and we can beat anybody. On any given night, is it likely that all three of those things happen? Of course not. But I bet we have one night this year where they all happen, and that’ll be a good night
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 2:15 PM EST up reply actions
Apparently you've had one too many philosophy/logic classes
Sure, I can imagine a universe in which Tennessee plays the ultimate game, at maximum possible performance level, and in which Kentucky pretends it is Southwestern Kentucky state community college. So, logic or philosophy classes would say it “can” happen.
But the common man, using rational thought and analysis, considers the vast array of likely outcomes and says, it ain’t happening; can’t happen; no way, no how, not here in this lifetime, not never.
(unless we have that one unbelievably, completely unlikely night – in which case, I will cheer myself into oblivion because I have Calipari with tangible passion.)
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
If it CAN happen...
then it MIGHT happen.
"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
I'm just saying that individual basketball games are high variance
the possibility of Maymon, Trae, and Jordan all going off at the same time isn’t one of these .0001% chance things like winning the national championship is. It’ll probably happen at least once this year. Look at what happened last year against Pitt. Let’s just hope it happens against Kentucky
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 30, 2011 2:50 PM EST up reply actions
One thing to take from this game
is that this time is going to really struggle without solid performances from both Golden and Maymon (or perhaps a spectacular performance from one). Last night, Trae didn’t play well, and Maymon was a bit hobbled.
We (I) might’ve been a little too quick to anoint Golden as a really good, dependable player. Hopefully those first couple games were a level that he gets to often (and against better teams), but there’s certainly no indication that he’ll get there consistently. And we need him to. And the inside is just lost when Maymon doesn’t do it all himself.
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 11:14 AM EST reply actions
A precipitous drop from Maymon to Hall to Yemi
and a shot at some meteoric improvement from Yemi who is so new to the game and looked it v Oakland. We have so many newcomers who will gain extensive PT and thus have a shot at significant improvement under fire
We need 3 of Mcrae, Golden, Tatum and Maymon to have great games vs most opponents to win along with some kind of improved to exceptional performance from a J Rich, Washpun, Miller or Yemi newcomer. Woolrich, McBee, or Hall will have to step it up too.
This team has a steep learning curve ahead and a coach who appears to be a guy who can get good play from less obvious talent. Even in the loss yesterday it was enjoyable to watch them play because there was always a sense they might pull it out even with Oakland hitting everything they threw at the rim.
Born in Fort Sanders - 1st Residence Aconda Court (Alumni Hall) - 1st games at Neyland 1947 - Mother = TORCHBEARER - Dad grad of UT & UT Law + professor BORN ORANGE and BLEED ORANGE .......
Also believe the jet lag thing - Legs looked dead.
Our guys were slow. Jumping a fraction late or being a half step slow to respond to a cut. I know Oakland was smaller and quicker but not THAT much quicker than Duke or Memphis.
Not basing my views above on the Oakland outcome, which wasn’t all that surprising.
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
Oakland
It’s in Michigan. I don’t think one time zone over results in jet lag.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 29, 2011 4:58 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
I think he means from Hawai'i
Heel for school, Vol for life!
Bolts, Preds, Canes (childhood team, home state team, hometown team). Canes mini-STH. Southern hockey solidarity!
by Incipient_Senescence on Nov 29, 2011 5:19 PM EST up reply actions
Correct. Less than 48 hrs before, they were on 20 hr flight back to the States
after playing 3 games in 3 days. They practiced, flew up for the late game, and had dead legs.
Called it jet lag for shorthand.
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
So, O/T:
I was looking at the pickems for this week and decided to peek back and see how things went last week. When I originally made my picks, I got them all figured out (Tennessee at 16 points over Kentucky WOO), and then I remembered that Will always posts an update on Thursday.
So, just to troll a bit, I left all the point values where I had them and switched the Tennessee pick over to Kentucky. After Will made his post, I went back and switched it to Tennessee. Only … for some reason, the switch back didn’t actually save when I hit the button. Not realizing this, I put the picks out of my mind until today.
So who had 16 points on Kentucky the week they broke the streak? THIS GUY.
/witnessprotectionprogram’d
Oh
That reminds me . . . .
Chief Editor, Rocky Top Talk. Chief in Charge of Woo, Gameday Depot.
by Joel Hollingsworth on Nov 29, 2011 5:24 PM EST up reply actions
Better not be adjusting my record there, commish.
I had the most points on Kentucky of the whole pool DON’T DENY ME THIS.
(I’m a really goofy type of competitive.)
by David Hooper on Nov 29, 2011 5:35 PM EST up reply actions
NO ONE DENIES YOU.
Formerly 'snail. You get used to it after a while.
by Chris Pendley on Nov 29, 2011 6:09 PM EST up reply actions
Self confessed that he wanted to change but didn't.
Give Hooper the benefit of the doubt and make his pick UT
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
Point #1:
The guys in the black panties were disturbing (and ridiculous).
Point #2: They absolutely looked tired. I thought it was especially apparent in the free throw shooting. However, they went out of their way in comments afterwards to not use that as an excuse.
Point #3: These guys don’t give up. I love that.
Point #4: Can’t we just watch them and enjoy them and not worry about the tournament and how good or bad we are? No expectations, etc… That’s my philosophy, and it’s very non-stressful.
Also, I hope everyone got some of the “woe is me” out of their system. Cheer up guys — nobody died.
"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
A little part of us took a step toward death- the unrealistic hope that we could make it to the NCAAs
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
To me....
hope is neither realistic nor unrealistic; it you start trying to quantify it, then it’s not hope anymore.
"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
right...it's gambling.
No homer.
by kidbourbon on Nov 30, 2011 2:33 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
well played
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
Will, who you callin Sissy, fus?
We're watching when you are not. Protecting against another 9-11.
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