Despite falling behind by 10 points with just over 12 minutes to play in the second half, the Tennessee Volunteers managed their ninth consecutive victory over the Georgia Bulldogs this past Saturday, 86-77.  With this win, the BasketVols improve to 10-4 overall, and kicked-off conference play with a win.

But was it enough?

By most measuring sticks, Georgia is either the worst or second-worst team in the SEC—unquestionably the worst team in the SEC East.  Despite their weakness as a team, the Dawgs gave Tennessee all they could handle.  In a game which—on paper—should have been a rout, Bruce and the Barbarians found themselves behind with only minutes to play.  To their credit, the Big Orange refused to go down and played with tenacity down the stretch—perhaps spurred on by Bruce Pearl losing his suit jacket in the second-half as the Vols continued to flounder.  Whatever gave them the edge, credit their hustle and effort in helping to secure the victory.

Many have recently opined that this team is simply not as good as the 2007-08 squad.  I would not necessarily disagree with this estimation, but would add the qualifier “at this point.”  I add this slight caveat because I am still not entirely convinced that—at least from a talent perspective—this team is not in the same class as last year’s squad individually.  Of course, their play so far really does call that into question.

This team just seems to have a hard time playing together—especially in tight spots.  By all appearances, this inability to gel as a team does not owe to ego, a lack of cooperation, or a lack of effort.  To the contrary, with a few small exceptions, this team clearly wants and tries to play together as one unit.  For some reason, however, it just does not seem to click.

At times, some of this confusion seems to arise from the annoyingly “inconsistent inconsistencies”—one night it’s defense, the next transition, and the next free throws.  Each game seems to feature the debut of yet another weakness, along with the departure of an already established one.  It is the proverbial “one step forward, two steps back,” type of situation.

In other words, the ball keeps moving…

This every changing cycle of strength and collapse exacerbates the team cohesiveness problems.  To some extent, this is understandable—especially for the coaching staff as they try to fix what is not working.  Furthermore, if the teammate you count on to be a clutch free throw shooter suddenly goes 2-22 from the charity stripe, well that’s going to have a negative impact on both chemistry and confidence for the team as a whole.

In some ways, these changing problems which (in most cases can be fixed) are worse than consistently un-fixable ones.  If you know as a team that no one can hit a 3-point shot to save their life, then you can adjust by simply working that much harder to push the ball inside for the sure-thing 2 points.  When the problem seems to change every game, however, things get much more challenging since you simply cannot be sure where the obstacles will arise.

In the end, it seems likely that—for the time being—there are going to be very few “easy” wins for this team.  That said, I do have faith in this team—and more importantly this staff—and believe that they will find a way to get things running on all cylinders.  I just do not know when.

It didn’t hurt that Tyler Smith—who was not even expected to play against the Dawgs—took it upon himself to drag the BasketVols to victory with his 24 points (13 in the second half) and 11 rebounds.  All of this after he was on crutches on Friday afternoon.  So far this season, the Vols have had a real habit of relying on a single leader to pull them through games.  While that isn’t how it should work, for now it is working.

And a win, after all, is still a win…

With the Kentucky Wildcats coming into the Tommy Bowl on Tuesday night, the Vols are going to have to find a a way to rise to the challenge, not as a collection of talented individuals, fraught with intermittent failures, and teetering on the edge of disaster.  The Vols are going to have to find a way to rise together, and meet the Wildcats as a team.  The Wildcats are sure to put the Vols to the the test.

Prior to the Georgia game, Cameron Tatum was quoted as saying: "This is our season now.  This is what we've been working for."

Hopefully, he is right.

-- Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: KNS / AP / John Curry

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