This past week the Tennessee men’s basketball team competed and finished third overall in the Puerto Rico Tip-off Tournament after beating UMass on Sunday, Nov. 18.
The Volunteers opened up the tournament by beating the UNC Asheville Bulldogs 75-68, but then lost in the second round to Oklahoma State 62-45.
Although the team finished 2-1 in the tournament, there are two important takeaways from this weekend.
First, the Volunteers can still win even when they commit turnovers.
In the opening game against UNC Asheville, Tennessee win the turnover battle 14-11, and in their final game against UMass, the Vols accumulated 16 turnovers versus the Minutemen’s 13. Surprisingly, Tennessee had two fewer turnovers than Oklahoma State in their loss. Even though this may sound counter-intuitive, it’s important that a team can overcome its mistakes. This shows that they don’t dwell on the mistakes and get back to playing defense. This speaks greatly to the defensive mindset that head coach Cuonzo Martin has instilled into his players in just over a year.
Second, when Jarnell Stokes is shut down, Tennessee will lose.
In Tennessee’s victories, Stokes averaged 19 points and 10.5 rebounds (24 and 12 versus UMass and 14 and 9 against UNC Asheville). In their only loss, Stokes only had seven points and four rebounds. Currently, Tennessee only has experience at the forward position in Kenny Hall and Stokes. While Hall did contribute, he wasn’t as dominating as Stokes. The Vols are shallow at forward with Dwight Miller and Jeronne Maymon missing time. While these two are out, Stokes is going to have to contribute significantly, as he did in the UMass game.
Although Tennessee did pull out the win against UNC Asheville, they showed flaws in the offense of the Volunteers. While Tennessee struggled in the Bulldogs’ 2-3 zone, but they seemed to struggle even more with their man-to-man defense. Although the Bulldogs were not the biggest and most physical team, they played a close and tight man defense for which Tennessee seemed to have no answer. In fact, the Vols were outscored 40-37 in the second half, in part because of the switch from zone to man. As the season goes forward, this should be a point to emphasize in practice. When the Volunteers play bigger, faster and stronger teams, they will struggle greatly against a man defense.
Oklahoma State isn’t as bad as everyone suggested. Even though they were projected to finish eight in the Big 12, they beat an N.C. State team that everyone projected to finish first in the ACC. Not only did they beat them, they beat them by 20. It is still very early in the season and N.C. State will surely gel and become the team everyone thinks they will be. However, the Cowboys may also be better than everyone thought.
The trip to Puerto Rico should be a good learning experience for the Volunteers and also a great way to begin the season. The SEC is tough this year and Tennessee also plays a tough non-conference schedule, so this early season test should give them insight into preparing for the rest of their games.
