-- Joel

Since the Auburn game wasn't on TV (odd that the #1 and #2 teams couldn't be accomodated for TV somehow) I'll post some of what I saw here.  Maybe it'll help pass the next few days as we wait for

The.  Game.

Anyhow, here we go.  First:  Many, many thanks to Aerobab for meeting me at the game.  I had a great time and, despite Joel's assertion, Aerobab is just as cool in person as here at RTT - maybe even more so.  But don't worry, I picked up the slack, I'm sure.

Now for my comfort zone of bullet points.

•  Interior Presence  This was the key to the game.  UT absolutely owned the interior on both ends.  Auburn had to settle for a lot of 3-point attempts and perimeter 2s because they just couldn't break UT's D by passing or by dribbling.  On the other end, UT could pass to the big guys or penetrate at will.  It explains a lot of Lofton's lack of shooting in the game - he didn't need to.  However, that leads to...
•  Rebounds  I didn't kid when I described UT's first half rebounding as "fumbling".  Quite often, they'd get the first shot at the rebound only to see the ball bounce out or squirt out of their hands to Auburn.  In the second half, it came under control and UT performed much better.  The only reason the game wasn't close at halftime was because of...
•  Shooting  If you didn't catch it, UT owned every shooting stat available, and it wasn't even close.  (Then again, if Auburn could shoot, they wouldn't have needed so many rebounds.)
•  Officiating  Since the game was never close, the radio audience would have never worried about it.  The good news was that it wasn't T. Valentine.  The refs were very loose in their calling and really let the teams play.  However, they had a tendency to mess up blocks vs. fouls.  Several times a blocked shot would be called a foul and the instant replay on the NASCAR Chicken Bucket clearly showed a great block.  Unfortunately, since UT was doing all the blocking, this adversely affected them.  This is actually the main reason why Chism fouled out.  Still, woo for blowouts.
•  Bench  Gah.  You probably didn't catch this on the radio, but did you notice how the score differential diminished around the 5-minute mark?  Pearl took all the starters out and played the bench with a cozy 20-something lead.  Auburn promptly started making points and the bench never returned the favor.  Eventually, Pearl pulled all the bench players back out and put the starters back in (minus one fouled-out Chism, of course).  This actually led to one more Lofton three, so woo for that.  But this is just a little disconcerting for Saturday.  Memphis can run with us and is a rather deep team.  We need our bench to play better.
•  Teamwork, teamwork, um, shoot the ball, dangit!  The team is unselfish.  Almost too unselfish.  The reason Lofton had only a few shots is that he was too busy trying to pass it to the interior.  Granted, UT owned the interior and passing inside was almost guaranteed points.  However, he had some great looks behind the line that he declined - much to the disappointment of the crowd.  Eventually, the team just kept feeding him until he obliged.  But the same applies to the others.  They play as a team, and they really love feeding each other the ball.
•  JaJuan needs another controversy, right?  Just to cover my bases, I'll talk about this.  One one fast break late in the game, JaJuan had the ball with absolutely nobody to stop him.  He jumped up for a dunk (there was nobody to pass to) and tried one of those 180-behind-the-back deals and missed.  He was clearly just having fun in an utter blowout, but if you hear complaints of Alabama redux, you now know why.  No worries - I seriously doubt he would have done that if it were close.

+  I had fun.  Yep.  This grumpy basketball not-liker had a great time at the game.  My greatest criticism of basketball does not apply to UT's team.  I like watching them play, and I'm really getting into this, I think.  A part of it is having a #2-ranked team, for sure (bandwagon effect - I'll admit it), but the larger part is that they're 5 players on the floor who work as one unit rather than 4 who stand and watch 1 try to make highlight reels.  So, football terminology or no, I think I'm in.