Across the (By)Line: Tennessee Volunteers basketball

By Cole Parke sports@kykernel.com

The “Across the (By)Line” series will give Kentucky basketball fans an in-depth look at their opponent for this week — from the mind of the opposing school’s sports editor.

This week: The Daily Beacon, Andrew Peters, Tennessee

How is Kentucky’s win in Knoxville earlier this year going to affect the matchup this Saturday?

“I think (Kentucky’s win) obviously fires them (Tennessee) up a ton, especially the older guys like (Santiago) Vescovi, (Olivier) Nkamhoua and (Uros) Plavsic. They’ve been around the program for a while and I think if there’s anything they hate, it’s losing to Kentucky.

To feel that once this season, I think that the intensity is going to step up on Saturday. It was already there the last time they played, but I think they’ll come into this game a little bit more intense. I’m not gonna say losing helps them, but I think because they lost that first matchup they’ll come in prepared to just leave it all out on the court.

A lot of these guys are about to play their last game against Kentucky, so I don’t think they want to end out on a loss. I think it’ll be a really fun game for that reason, just as it always is with these two teams.”

Tennessee has been taking more losses lately, what has been going wrong for the Vols?

“You don’t want to say that teams are just getting lucky, but if you look at the last couple of games, that’s kind of what it looks like.

Obviously, Vanderbilt. That’s honestly a pretty tough environment to play in. Jerry Stackhouse is a great coach. So with that game, I think they just kind of got outplayed. They looked pretty sluggish on offense and had a pretty big defensive lapse, which is very rare for them, and then, Stackhouse drew up a perfect play there at the end.

Then against Missouri I think a lot of it has to do with that first half, they came out really slow. Missouri came out really hot – I think Missouri had like eight threes in the first half, which, before the Vanderbilt game they hadn’t given up more than eight threes in a game, so I think their 3-point defense has kind of slipped over the last couple of games, and that’s been huge.

You look at that Missouri game and, you know, it’s obviously a heartbreaking loss and kind of disheartening to lose two games – two games straight on a buzzer beater – but you look at that game and you find a lot of positives, because that second half was the best they’ve looked on offense this entire season, by far.

I think if they can take that momentum that they had in the second half and bring it into the Kentucky game on Saturday I think that they’ll return to looking like one of the top teams in the country like there were three weeks ago.”

It feels like these teams can never sweep each other. Do you think that will continue this year and Tennessee will win game two?

“What’s fun about this rivalry is no matter how good the other team is, no matter how bad the other team is, they always seem to split the series.

Even back in the rough 10 years that Tennessee had, the early 2000s and 2010s, they would still go into Rupp Are- na or go into Thompson-Boling and get a win over Kentucky, so I don’t really see that changing this year, especially with how the game earlier in the season went.

I just don’t think that they’re going to stand getting beat by Kentucky twice. I definitely see them splitting the games again this year and that’s what makes this game a rivalry: it’s always going to be competitive.

I think Tennessee is going to take the kind of feeling that they’ve had from the last two games and turn it into a fired up performance on Saturday.”

What will be the key to victory for Tennessee on Saturday?

“As of right now Josiah-Jordan James isn’t playing and Julian Phillips is questionable. Without those two guys Tennessee’s defense slips a ton, (the team) falls off a cliff defensively because those are two of the best guys on defense. I think if they’re able to play on Saturday, Tennessee plays a highly defensive game.

You look at shutting down the perimeter, obviously, it’s going to be tough to shut down Oscar Tshiebwe without any really great defensive big men, but I think if those two play it’s going to be a defensive game and I think if they don’t play then Tennessee’s got to win on offense.

(Tennessee) had a really good threeguard lineup against Missouri on Saturday, which kind of led to that offensive success in the second half and if Josiah and Julian are playing, they go back to that three guard lineup and try to win it through a plethora of 3-pointers and quick runs on offense.

I think the key is offensive success mixed with the stout defense that we’ve seen from them all year. I think that Tennessee is objectively a better team than Kentucky this year and so I think they just can’t get outplayed on Saturday. I think it’s as simple as that.”