The infatuation of Tennessee fans with Bruce Pearl and their perpetual skepticism of Cuonzo Martin are clear evidence that the attribute which UT fans value the most in a basketball team is its ability to entertain.
In Donnie Tyndall’s UT coaching debut at Thompson-Boling Arena on Monday night, his team certainly entertained.
The Vols defeated Pikeville, 80-62, in an exhibition matchup. But don’t let the facts bore you.
This game was about getting a peek at a new coaching regime, and it was an attention-grabbing look featuring the visually appealing type of play that UT fans came to know during Pearl’s coaching tenure from 2005-11.
UT is young. Really young. Only one starter from last season – Josh Richardson – is back for the Vols, but they are athletic and it showed against an NAIA opponent.
First there was Willie Carmichael viciously pinning a Pikeville shot against the backboard with 15:27 to play in the first half. That was fun.
Jeronne Maymon and Jarnell Stokes were a force in the paint under Martin, but neither of UT’s departed big men could have made the same block that Carmichael, an athletic 6-foot-8 freshman, made.
Then there was Detrick Mostella flying through the air for an impressive reverse layup later in the half.
The 6,000 or so UT fans cooed collectively at that one. It looked like something J.P. Prince might have done in 2009.
Little do they care that in the official game notes distributed by UT, Mostella is described as, “learning to play disciplined basketball within a system.”
And they probably talked a lot more on the way home about those plays by Carmichael and Mostella than they did about the performance of K.K. Simmons, who repeatedly found gaps in UT’s zone defense to hit 7 of 13 three-point shots.
UT fans might have gotten annoyed with Simmons’ continuous abuse of their team. But most of them probably didn’t know that the Vols have switched to a zone defense under Tyndall after three straight years of exclusively playing man-to-man under Martin.
Appreciation of basketball’s finer delicacies are reserved for fans of upper class basketball programs like Duke, North Carolina and Indiana, and it’s not necessarily surprising that people in the shadow of Neyland Stadium struggle to comprehend basketball.
Tennessee played a more disciplined, fundamentally sound brand of the game under Martin than it did under Pearl and fans labeled it boring.
They changed course when UT made the Sweet 16, but so did Martin, who threw up the deuces and jetted to California.
This UT team may not have a point guard or a true identity yet. But in its first exhibition game it was exactly what fans at Thompson-Boling Arena want it to be.
Entertaining.
“They’re going to enjoy it more because you know the fans want a high-tempo, high-scoring game,” junior forward Derek Reese said after the game. “Defense wins championships. But offense sells tickets. They’re coming to see that.”
David Cobb is a senior in journalism and electronic media. He can be reached at [email protected].
