If you're looking for a nice diversion from all this football anticipation as we sit 12 weeks away from kickoff, the Rocky Top Basketball League begins its third season of play on Monday at Bearden High School in Knoxville.  The six team summer league will feature games at 6:00, 7:30 and 9:00 PM each Monday and Wednesday night for the next three weeks, with free admission.  The summer league style of play may not be conducive to producing discipline and wise shot selection...but Bruce Pearl will be quick to point out that he likes the conditioning it provides, it's become a nice presence for Tennessee Basketball in the offseason in a short time, and regardless of its shortcomings, it's highly entertaining.

The league is also a great chance to see not only current Vols, but Vols past and future, as well as other local talent.  The draft was held on Wednesday, with CJ Watson selected with the first pick.  The league has its own official site that will do stat-tracking throughout the season, and where you can see the complete rosters for each team.  A couple of notes - it's unclear if Chris Lofton will make it through Knoxville in the next three weeks to participate, but if he's available he's said he'll play.  And JP Prince appears to be a no-go this year in the league as he recovers from offseason surgery.  

Here's a quick look at each team, where the Vols have landed, and who else of note will be featured in the league this year (the league is sponsored by Pilot with each team carrying an additional corporate sponsor):

Continue reading this post »

Vertical Leap, from Tennessee Valley Publishing.

View full size photo uploaded May 20, 2009

I had the pleasure of talking with Dane Bradshaw last night about his upcoming basketball camp and a variety of other subjects, including Bruce Pearl, Chris Lofton, and John Calipari coming to the SEC.

The Bradshaw & Dowdle Basketball Camp will be from June 29 through July 3 (although after listening to the interview you'll likely conclude that I'll accidentally end up being there a month late and Bradshaw accidentally a day early) at Farragut Middle School. Register here.

We also made a couple of references to his book, Vertical Leap, which, if you're a Vol basketball fan, you really ought to find and buy. If you want to know more about it first, check out my review of the thing.

Many thanks to Dane for taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk with us. Click the button below to hear the interview. You can also download it from this page to listen to later.

More photos » by Paul Connors - AP

Hopefully, there will be more than one option for this picture on the next all-decade team. Until then, CJ Watson carries the torch for Vols in the NBA.

Browse more photos »

The votes have all been tallied, and after a month of debate and analysis, we proudly present RockyTopTalk's Tennessee Basketball All-Decade Team.

The five starters were the winners of four rounds of voting, one for each position plus the automatic inclusion of one Chris Lofton.  The rest of the 12-man lineup is comprised of those who received the highest percentage of remaining votes.  You can check out all of our analysis at each position and see the voting breakdown for point guard, perimeter players not named Chris Lofton, post players, and the five spot.

STARTING LINEUP

PG CJ Watson (2003-2006)

• Second Team All-SEC 2006
• 2nd all-time UT history in assists and steals
• Career Avg:  12.0 points, 4.8 assists, 3.7 rebounds, 1.7 steals
• Averaged 9.5 PPG for Golden State this season

SG Chris Lofton (2005-2008)

• 2007 SEC Player of the Year
• First Team All-SEC 2006, 2007, 2008
• Second Team All-American 2007, 2008
• SEC all-time leader in three pointers made
• 4th all-time UT history in points
• 3rd all-time UT history in steals
• Career Avg: 16.6 points, 42.4% 3PT

SF JaJuan Smith (2005-2008)

• Second Team All-SEC 2008
• 3rd all-time UT history in three pointers made
• 4th all-time UT history in steals
• Career Avg:  11.0 points, 3.2 rebounds 

PF Ron Slay (2000-2003)

• 2003 SEC Player of the Year
• First Team All-SEC 2003
• Highest UT Season Scoring Avg of Decade (21.2 PPG - 2003)
• Career Avg:  14.4 points, 5.9 rebounds

C Wayne Chism (2007-present)

• Second Team All-SEC 2009
• Career Avg:  10.9 points, 6.3 rebounds, 1.0 blocks

Bench and more after the jump...

Continue reading this post »

In the hype of the Orange and White game, I completely missed this.  Pearl gives Tennessee fans a hearty and extended "thank you" for the four seasons of support.  He talks about a lot in two and a half minutes, including Dane Bradshaw, last year's team, the upcoming seasons, the competition in the SEC, and his plans to use the sports website to communicate to fans more frequently.

Unfortunately, UT Sports does not allow embedding of their YouTube videos.  (Boo!)  So you can see it here, which opens in a new window.  It's worth the watch.  Money line:

We're working hard, as we should, to try to maintain a level of competitiveness that we've enjoyed over the last 3 or 4 years.  The bar's going to continue to raise.  Championships are going to continue to be tougher to be had.  But when we win them.  We'll enjoy them all the more.

(Also, the football program can learn a lesson about fitting music to promotional videos from the basketball program.)

More on the Rap

I also didn't realize that SportsCenter did a thorough breakdown of Pearl's rap at the Volscars.  You know, in comparison to the raps from other sports figures, it really doesn't look too shabby.

Continue reading this post »

Today, Melvin Goins made his commitment to UT official by submitting his Letter of Intent and will officially be a BallerVol for the 2009-2010 season.  Only the second incoming player for the 2009 recruiting class (the other is forward Kenny Hall), he fills a tremendous need at point guard for a team that suffered in backcourt play - a fault that eventually cost them a chance to go deep in the NCAA tournament.

Goins will be in his first year under Pearl, but there is reason to think he might transition faster than many point guards in a new system.  In 2007, he played for the Ball State Cardinals, where he played in 30 games.  He then transferred to Mount San Jacinto Junior College for the 2008 season and was named the MVP of the Foothill Conference.  It may not sound terribly impressive on the surface, but the number of games played and the MVP season do tell us that he can learn to fit in with a team quickly.  With some training and (productive) use of the Rocky Top Pilot League, he may be ready to play straight out of the box.

There is more to be excited about with Goins:  at 5'-10" and 190 lbs, he is much stockier and more powerfully built than Maze or West.  It's the kind of build that made Byron Eaton of Oklahoma State so successful.  He plays a strong transition game with great ball control - something that must really make Pearl happy.  If he plays with intensity and speed on the defensive end, he might fill the "JaJuan" role that we missed last year.

Outlook

Through the last basketball season, the most common lament of Vols fans was the lack of leadership in the backcourt.  With the end of eligibility of both Chris Lofton and JaJuan Smith and the unfortunate loss of Ramar Smith in the offseason, UT went from perhaps the most experienced and cohesive backcourt in the SEC in 2007-2008 to the youngest set of guards in 2008-2009.  Most notably, the Vols didn't have a clear lead point guard.

The problem was supposed to be solved by the addition of two new players:  Bobby Maze and Daniel West.  Maze had a decent season, but there were noticeable hitches in his game that were likely the effect of the transition to Pearl's style of play.  Meanwhile, West fell victim to one of the crueller twists of the NCAA knife.  Known to be a risky academic case, the NCAA decided to wait until after the fall semester registration deadline to tell West that they were going to reject his SAT retake and deny his scholarship.  Saddled with a committed courseload after the drop/add date and with an intense desire to play under Pearl, West decided to stick with UT and pay for school out of pocket until he can get his situation fixed.  (As an aside, there is still no word whether West will be eligible next year.  I hope he pulls through, especially since the NCAA completely jobbed him by delaying their decision for so long.)

Sometimes, though, time is indeed the greatest cure.  Maze has a year under his belt and can spend the offseason tuning his game to Bruceball.  If he stays on task, West should have his academics clear and, if he continues with his plan to play at UT, would be a very welcome addition.  And now we can add Melvin Goins.

Ideally, all three will be available.  Maze is not as pure of a point guard as West or Goins, so he may find more time in the 2 slot if all three play.  If so, his experience at point will still be great to have, especially if one of the other two should get injured.  The change-up combination is also great; Maze and West play long and lean, while Goins is built like a backcourt bulldog.  That should help UT tailor their lineup to play against a wider array of opponents - a luxury that is absolute gold for tournament play.

Logistics

The one issue with Goins coming in is that UT is now one player over the scholarship limit.  The problem could be solved if one of the Wayne Chism, Tyler Smith, and J.P. Prince trio leave early.  In that scenario, the most likely is Smith and, as much as I'd hate to see him go, it might be the right answer for him and his family.  Also, if Emmanuel Negedu continues to improve, Renaldo Woolridge steps up his game, and Kenny Hall has a strong start, the team may actually be in better shape to have the extra point guard without Smith than vice versa.  (Not that it's a choice between the two; just an observation.)

Another possibility is that someone loses a scholarship.  It happened last year with the departure of Crews and Ramar.  Playing the role of the grim reaper, the first name that comes to mind is West.  If he doesn't get academically cleared, then his loss would be made up by the gain of Goins at point.  No Vols fan should want to see that happen, but it's always a possibility until we know it isn't.

However it works out, we have a new Vol to welcome to the family.  It's all orange-tinted goggles right now, but the next season looks like the Vols' year.  Even if Smith leaves, they will have an experienced team with a well-built backcourt and the physical diversity to match up against almost any team in the nation.

We conclude our voting on the Vols' All-Decade Team with the center position, featuring three players whose careers span eight of the last ten years (honorable mention to Charles Hathaway and Major Wingate for rounding out the decade at the position).

All three players are really forward/center hybrids who were called on to handle the other team's big men and played the five in Tennessee's lineup, and all three saw significant action from the day they stepped on campus.  And it's fair to say that all three really hovered right on the edge of being considered an elite SEC player, but never quite got over it...but each was still an important part of Tennessee's success this decade.

If you're looking for stats to settle the score, don't:  all three candidates have an almost identical career stat line of 11 points and 6 rebounds per game.

The winner here will join CJ Watson, Chris Lofton, JaJuan Smith and Ron Slay in the starting five on the All-Decade team, while the second place vote getter will still find a spot in the 12-man rotation.

As always, we break down each candidate after the jump...

Continue reading this post »

Easily the most competitive and most difficult spot on this rotation, which of five candidates will join CJ Watson, Chris Lofton and JaJuan Smith on the All-Decade Team?

A word on how we've broken this up:  any player with a significant number of starts in their career at center will go in the next group.  This does allow for some players who've played both the 4 and the 5 at Tennessee (like CJ Black) to go in that second group, but it also means you have some incredibly difficult choices today.  However, I think it's most fair when we're picking a starting lineup to make it look most similar to what the Vols actually put on the floor - everyone in this group today was never the "center" in the Vols' starting lineup.  That's a long way of answering the question "How come we can't just put Tyler Smith and Ron Slay both in there?"

Five Vols spanning the entire decade with very different styles of play come into question here...we break down each option in an attempt to find the best of the post players at Tennessee this decade...

Continue reading this post »

More photos » by Mark J. Terrill - AP

"Waaa" can be used as a substitute for "bye" when talking to Tiger fans. ;-)

Browse more photos »

Just another ho-hum news day on Rocky Top, huh?

It took all day, but Bruce Pearl blew off the Suitor in Blue, saying that he's 100% committed to Tennessee, that he loves his job, and that there's no place he'd rather be. Good thing, too, because Memphis was reportedly willing to pay Pearl up to $3.25 million per year. Details of Pearl's new contract won't be released for a few days, but Mike Griffith thinks that he'll likely get a raise of between $250,000 to $500,000, which would put him between $2 million and $2.2 million, third-best in the SEC behind Calipari ($3.7M) and Billy Donovan ($3.5M).

I agree with John Adams that this is the best news for Volunteer basketball since the Pearlfection game. Adams also points out that Pearl can now go right into Memphis and ask players to choose Tennessee over Tiger High -- just like he did. And no, I'm not going to ban the use of derogatory terms like "Tiger High" likely because I lack self-esteem. One word, five times for such Tiger fans:

So yeah, crisis averted. Note to self: Remember this day the next time we lose a game.