Posts Tagged ‘Tyler Smith’

It’s a rainy and stormy afternoon here in Knoxville, but Tyler Smith is brightening the day for Tennessee hoops.

Smith announced he’s going to stay for his senior season. Obviously this is good news, because Tyler’s the best player on Tennessee’s team. Additionally, Smith will be the fifth senior Vol for next year, alongside Wayne Chism, J.P. Prince, Bobby Maze, and Josh Tabb (walk-on Quinn Cannington is also a senior). A nice senior core for the Vols as they look to add a second SEC Title in four years. At this point, your way early SEC favorites have to be (in no particular order) Kentucky with the Jodie Meeks-Patrick Patterson combo and influx of studs, defending champs LSU with Tasmin Mitchell (who’s been at LSU since Stromile Swift) and Marcus Thornton, and Tennessee.

Welcome back, Tyler

A couple of other notes: first, a shout-out to bosgap at Losers With Socks who called this 9 days ago. Now I wouldn’t say they were going too terribly far out on that limb, but kudos to those guys scooping this, adding another feather in their hat of breaking news well in advance.

Secondly, a shout-out of thanks and best wishes to Philip Jurick, who is transferring and thus providing a way for Tyler to come back by opening up a scholarship. I saw Jurick play a little bit at last year’s Rocky Top League, and while I saw some promise, I also saw a project of sorts. He showed some really positive inside defense but his offensive game was very lacking. With Tyler’s return and the addition of Kenny Hall to the Chism-Brian Williams-Emmanuel Negedu platoon, I highly doubt Jurick would have been able to break into the big-man rotation next year.

Speaking of the Rocky Top League, last year I took upon myself the task of “covering” it using the start I started out with – “The View From The Hill.” I went every night and took some video and some pictures and mental notes and observations, and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I won’t be able to do that this year, as I won’t be able to go every night and I’ll miss the first week of it. That said, if you’re in Knoxville on a Monday or Wednesday the next three weeks, do head over to Bearden High School and watch some games.

Sure, there’s no air-conditioning and outside of the Tennessee players the other competitors are small college or high school players, but it’s a cool experience. Of course it’s glorified pick-up basketball with referees and clock, and the defense is highly lacking, but nowhere else will you get this close to the Vol players. If you’ve got kids, I can almost guarantee you will get autographs from the entire team, as well as some other former Vols like everybody’s favorite Dane Bradshaw, and a couple of my personal favorite former Vols Ron Slay and C.J. Watson.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the best part…IT’S FREE

– … to me.

I normally don’t post about individual commitments or recruiting updates in general, but I think this is fairly important. Tennessee got another defensive lineman – tackle, specifically – to join the group for 2010 in the form of John Brown.

This is important for two reasons. First, Brown is transferring from the University of Florida to Northeast Mississippi Junior College in the fall to likely an early enrollee at Tennessee in December or January (he says he will sign with the Vols as soon as he can).

Secondly, Brown was a pretty highly-touted recruit coming of Lakeland High School in Florida in 2007. Yet, for lack of a better term, was a bust in Gainesville, barely seeing the field in two seasons due to injury, academic and motivation issues (or so I’ve read).

So are Ed Orgeron and Monte Kiffin taking a slight risk with this offer and pickup? To an extent, yes. But you have to think Brown has some level of potential left after being a 4-star (5-star on Scout) guy out of high school. Obviously his time at Florida was unremarkable, but hopefully a change in scenery may give him the kick in the pants he might need to put it all together on the field.

And hey, considering the well-documented issues Tennessee will have along the offensive and defensive lines following this season, you probably should just take what you can get and be happy.

On another quick note, as most of you know Tennessee is conducting football and basketball camps this week here in Knoxville. I have yet to see any of it except for the local news coverage on TV and the internet, but by all accounts it seems to have gone very well on the football front. As for basketball, I think it’s pretty cool Chris Lofton is back in town. I have an incredible amount of respect for #5 (that jersey is on the wall of my room) and he’s going to be an all-time favorite. He also has a tryout with the Memphis Grizzlies later next week, so hopefully he makes the most of that opportunity, because he deserves a shot to make the NBA. And of course what better team than my hometown Grizz? I have no idea what his chances are of sticking around with the team for the summer, but I wish him luck.

In other basketball Tyler Smith news, despite Tyler’s discussion of playing in Europe, I don’t see that happening given him having his son Amare. And Losers With Socks says he’s coming back, and they have been correctly ahead of everybody else on a couple of these type things, so take that for what it’s worth.

That’s it for now, hopefully some concrete QB recruiting news will come out soon – we’re all waiting for it.

– … to me.

Yep, I’m still here. Lawvol hasn’t kicked me out of the site yet, despite my laziness and lack of posting this spring. I literally haven’t posted anything in a month and two days. My last post focused on Tyler Smith declaring for the NBA Draft and his prospects for that draft. Since then, I’ve had to finish up the spring semester, haul through a three week min-term class, and, probably most importantly, looked for and found a place to intern for the fall in efforts to further my career. After all, I am now a senior and hopefully I’ll have graduated this time next year (yes, it’s kind of scary).

I sure haven’t missed too much the past month…

If you’re like me, you’ve long been counting down to August and football season already, and only the NBA and NHL playoffs have been offering a real distraction from that. It’s been a rather action-packed month for the Tennessee program, as there seems to be something come up just about every single day, especially this past week.

J.C. Copeland

• Recruiting: This new staff obviously spends an incredible amount of time evaluating and going through the process, and that has reaped some results the past two weeks. After this season, the offensive and defensive lines are going to be particularly thin, so those two positions without a doubt are the biggest needs in the 2010 class.

So Tennessee goes out and gets some big people. Yes way yes way Jose Jose started it off, followed by JUCO defenders Pat Harris and Bruce Irvin, Georgia J.C. Copeland, and Miami linebacker/d-end Ralph Williams. Now I must admit I hadn’t heard of any of these guys. Additionally, Jose needs to drop some weight and Harris didn’t even play football in high school. Obviously we fans have to simply take our coaches’ words for it when it comes to recruiting because it’s so hit-or-miss, but I think we need to understand that this is likely going to be a big class numbers-wise and size-wise, as in there’s going to be some beef in these commitments. I also don’t find much surprise in taking some junior college players who have the potential ability to come in and contribute right away. Then again, those guys are even more hit (Gibril Wilson) or miss (Kenny O’Neal).

Jake Heaps...

• The QB situation: In addition to the needs along the lines, the other big recruiting story line is of course the QB position, where the Vols expect to sign at least two in the 2010 class. Jake Heaps and Jesse Scroggins (their Rivals profiles are linked at the end) are the two big names, and Andrew Hendrix has been another guy whose name I’ve heard alot. I’ll keep my opinion on this simple: if Tennessee were to get Heaps or Scroggins and Hendrix or another guy, then I think you can be happy with that.

or Jesse Scroggins?

Now that is where having the situation with Robert Marve not work out hurts a little, because now after this season you’re down to Nick Stephens and Mike Rozier, the former baseball player. That’s also where B.J. Coleman bailing doesn’t help either, but the way he handled that situation of going to the Chattanooga Times-Free Press first and throwing the coaches under the bus makes me not miss him. Good riddance and enjoy playing for a really bad UT-Chattanooga program. Nevertheless, we should know something on Heaps and Scroggins soon, because Heaps has said he wants to make his decision in June and Scroggins may very well be waiting to see what Heaps does.

• The exodus: OK, players leaving is a part of any program where there’s a turnover of coaching staffs, so this was sort of expected. It happened at Alabama when Nick Saban was hired and it’s happened now with the Kiffin regime. What does it mean, exactly? Well, really outside of the Coleman departure’s effect on the QB depth, the collective contributions of the 11 leaving players isn’t much, outside of Lennon Creer and Dee Morley. Creer saw the writing on the wall with Toney Williams, Bryce Brown and David Oku joining the stable, and Morley had been walking a tight line for awhile. Losing some lineman hurts depth, but overall, how bad have the 11 departures really been? Hey, if a player isn’t going to cut it or doesn’t want to do the work that will cut it, then see ya later.

Even the new coaching staff has had a member leave this week in strength and conditioning coach Mark Smith. Obviously the AD and Kiffin had mutual disagreements of some kind with Smith and it’s unfortunate and probably a negative event, but I think Tennessee will be OK in the end. Aaron Ausmus seems like the likely replacement, but Lane needs to find one soon, since summer workouts start next week.

• Hokey Pahokee: Much. Ado. About. Nothing. No, Lane shouldn’t have said what he said and he apologized well before this got brought up again. The principal of the school and whoever else had a hand in drawing this out to the point it got to came across as desperate for some attention. The problem I had was the administration of a school denying access of specific schools to their students. In other words, if I’m a stud recruit at that Pahokee and there’s mutual interest between me and Tennessee, should the school have the right to deny UT access to me? Fortunately it’s apparently all good down there now, so hopefully UT can get another player from that talent-rich area.

Yes or no?

• Twitter-gate: Who cares? Secondary violations don’t mean a thing…unless Tennessee does it. Lane didn’t even “tweet” it, so I don’t even blink an eye to this nonsense.

On another note, what’s the deal with Twitter? I’ve been back-and-forth on whether or not I want to give in and join the craze and following some of the various athletes’ accounts would be cool, but what’s the big deal? If you’re on there, please tell me…

• Daniel Hood: This got a great deal of attention as well as it should have, so I won’t spend too much time on it. It’s a touchy subject as well, and I was skeptical at first about it. However, I feel much better about it now than I did when I first got the news the Hood was getting a scholarship. Tennessee still will have a convicted rapist on the team and opposing fans will use this against the Vols from now until the end of time, but that’s part of the consequences. The bottom line for me is that everyone who commented in stories I read who are and were much, much closer to Hood and the situation than any of us said nothing but positive things about Hood. I mean, the victim of the whole ordeal vouched for Hood. What more does it take? I think Lane and the staff and Mike Hamilton did their work on this one, so I can handle their decision.

That’s it for now. I’ll probably post something about the awesomely exciting (or “amazing,” if you agree with the slogan) NBA Playoffs. Also, this is probably old news, but if you haven’t already checked it out, Will over at Rocky Top Talk is getting into the nitty-gritty (ie, top 15) of his countdown of the 50 best games from the Philip Fulmer era. This is probably old because they started way back in January, but it’s really good stuff – the writing and story-telling is so good it might even be better than the nostalgic feelings of the good ‘ol days.

– … to me.

Images Courtesy of: VolQuest • Rivals – Jake Heaps • Rivals – Jesse Scroggins

As had been expected, Tennessee’s Tyler Smith declared for the NBA Draft yesterday. As is the case with a number of others draft entrees, Tyler hasn’t hired an agent, so he’s got until June 15 to come back.

Will #1 be back?

As the title of this post clearly states, I think Tyler Smith is going to be playing for Tennessee next year. I don’t believe I’m in the minority in thinking that, either. Now, I could be very wrong, because Tyler could go work out for one of these teams playing right now (that will have late first-round picks) and really impress them.

It’s not that Tyler isn’t a good player or not NBA material. There are guys in the NBA who I see and wonder how they in the league (take Sean Marks, Mark Madsen, Brian Cardinal and Robert Swift, for example) in the first place. It’s just that Tyler is a small forward in the NBA, and he’s playing the power forward spot for Tennessee. He showed he can knock down the outside shot when he’s left open, but this season he faced quite a bit of traffic in the lane because teams sagged off the perimeter because we couldn’t shoot threes and struggled with his shot. The Memphis game – against a long, athletic team – comes to mind.

So he can post up, he can shoot it decently, but can he straight-up drive by an NBA 3-man? Can he hit the mid-range jumper?

There is his family situation with his son to think about as well, but I think Tyler’s going to be a Vol next season. He should have better shooters surrounding him, and we saw how good he can be when you put that around him (2007-08). And even if he does stay in the draft, it’d be cool to have the number of Tennessee NBA players doubled.

Speaking of which, mad props to C.J. Watson the last seven games of this season for Golden State. Watson, one of my favorite Vols all-time and a guy who deserves more credit and appreciation than I think he gets, averaged 19 points and 6 assists in those games. He had 38 points, 7 rebounds, and nine assists (he made 16-of-16 free throws too) in a win over the Jazz, and had 20 points, 7 boards, 12 assists, and three steals in the season finale against Phoenix.

For an avid fantasy basketball guy like myself (second place in my second year of it…boom!), those numbers are more impressive to me. If this was his chance to stake his claim to Golden State’s starting PG position for next season, you can’t say he didn’t take advantage of it.

The only VOL currently in the NBA, and one of my all-time faves

But back to the main point of this, expect to see Tyler back in orange next year – with what should be an improved team.

– … to me.

Images Courtesy of: Ramin Rahimian / Reuters

2009 SEC Tournament Championship Game

Final Statistics: Mississippi State 64 • Tennessee 61

Postgame: Quotes • Box Score

Try as they might during the 2009 SEC Tournament Championship game, the Tennessee Volunteers simply could not overcome the Mississippi State Bulldogs … or the officials.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the BasketVols loss on the officiating, because it was awful in both directions, but the calls in the second half were as poor as I have seen in a major tournament championship in a long time, notwithstanding the fact that Ted “Rah-spect mah Au-thori-tah!!” Valentine was nowhere to be found.

Here are a few highlights, courtesy of ESPN:

Miss. State Upends the Vols| ESPN.com

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Final Score: Florida 63 • Tennessee 79

Postgame: Quotes • Box Score

The BasketVols managed to get back in the win column versus the Florida Gators, grabbing a key win in the Tommy Bowl.  The win was the Tennessee Volunteers’ 4th straight and 6th win out of the last 7 games against the Gators.  More importantly, with the Kentucky Wildcats losing back to back games against first Ole Miss and then South Carolina, Tennessee moved back in the running for the SEC East, in a three way tie with Florida and the Wildcats (I know, they are technically a 1/2 game back, but who’s counting?).  At 13-7 (4-2 SEC), the Vols are very much in the mix as they enter the final month of the season.

The key feature of this game was the absence of mental lapses.  This was the first “complete” game the Vols have managed since beating Vanderbilt on the 20th of January.

Hopefully, this was a turning point…

'Scuse me! Comin' through!

The Vols only shot 49.2% from the field, but made up for it by shooting 42.9% from behind the 3-point arc.  The Vols were led offensively by Scotty Hopson, who scored 20 points, followed by Tyler Smith (16), Wayne Chism (12), and Bobby Maze (11).  Defensively, the Orange led in steals 10-5 over the Gators who gave up 18 turnovers.  This was probably the best defensive showing by Tennessee this season.  Of course, it is easier to play god defense when you jump out to a quick lead, which is exactly what the Vols did.

Starting out 6-0, Tennessee grabbed the lead and never relinquished it.  Leading by as much as 23 points in the second half (16:03 remaining), the closest Florida could get from there was 9 points (7:09 remaining).  The Vols responded by putting on more steam and kept it going down the the stretch, securing the 16 point victory.

Player of the Game Scotty Hopson seemed to really turn a corner, shooting 4-6 from 3-point range, along with his 27 minutes of solid defense and “smart” play moving the ball. Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism both did their part, each with 9 rebounds and a stifling presence.  Still, the win was a team effort with each of the Vols contributing in a positive and meaningful way.

• Stats Courtesy of: CBS Sports

With ESPN’s College GameDay crew in Knoxville, it’s nice to see the men in orange send a message to the nation.  What was that message?

We may be young, but we don’t quit, and we are getting stronger…

After the game, Tennessee Head Coach Bruce Pearl, said that he felt that the Vols were ready to beat Florida.  After losing to the LSU Tigers earlier in the week, he was heartened by the effort he saw getting ready to face the Gators, “After we lost Wednesday to LSU, we practiced hard Monday; they showed me at that time they intended to move on.”

Apparently, Bruce Almighty was right.

Now, if the Vols can capitalize on the momentum over the Gators and push forward as they get ready to take on Arkansas, Auburn, and Georgia, they can put themselves in a good position to compete for the SEC East title, with the overall SEC Title still within reach.  The Vols face the Arkansas Razorbacks 13–6 (1–5 SEC) on Wednesday, 4 February at 8:00 pm in Fayetteville.

– So it goes …

Image Courtesy of: ESPN.com / AP – Wade Payne

So yesterday’s 54-52 loss to Memphis hurts. Sure, it’s less the day after, but I won’t lie – I needed a couple hours to chill out and relax after exerting quite a bit of energy and emotion. Things go on and Tennessee has two more HUGE home games coming up this week in the SEC.

I don’t want to spend too much time of why Tennessee lost, because the answer’s pretty short one. Missed opportunities aplenty and just some untimely plays. Memphis was 11-of-14 on free throws, Tennessee was 14-of-23 from the line. Tyler Smith shot 5-of-18 from the field, many of them decent – and contested – looks. Wayne Chism didn’t get the ball enough down the stretch – he only had 7 field goal attempts the entire game.

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