dbvolfan
Well-known member
WOO HOO! My Vols are off to slay the #1 Tigers of Memphis this weekend. Finally! It's an in-state 1 vs 2 matchup that doesnt involve the state of North Carolina for once!
It's also nice to have Gameday at a TN event that doesnt involve footbal for a change!
GO VOLS!
In Tennessee, a vintage season for hoop dreams
By Tom Weir, USA TODAY
MEMPHIS — In the buildup to Saturday's historic in-state showdown between No. 1 Memphis and No. 2 Tennessee, tickets have been listed for as much as $10,000 on Stubhub.com.
There's no disputing the state of Tennessee has never witnessed a bigger matchup between any of its teams in men's basketball. Memphis coach John Calipari likens the atmosphere to a Super Bowl, and Tennessee alum Peyton Manning will bolster that contention by jetting in with younger brother Eli in tow.
In the Memphis rooting section at FedEx Forum, the iconic role will fall to Priscilla Presley, widow of "The King." So yeah, this is big. Bigger than Elvis' hair. Bigger than Dolly Parton's … well, you get the idea.
"The college basketball scene in Tennessee, if it's ever been better, somebody has got to tell me when," says Calipari, whose team is undefeated and a unanimous No. 1 in the polls.
Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, whose team is 24-2, 11-1 in the Southeastern Conference, adds, "I'm proud of what is going to take place on Saturday. An event like 1 vs. 2 is reserved usually for Tobacco Road or Indiana or Kentucky. But it's right here, in Tennessee."
Also right there in Tennessee are eight other strong contenders for the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. The only other states with similar prospects of being represented by at least 10 teams in the two events are California and Texas, each with many more Division I schools than Tennessee has.
Vanderbilt's 16th-ranked men (22-4, 7-4 SEC) get a shot at Tennessee on Tuesday in Nashville. Last season, the Commodores reached the Sweet 16 and missed advancing to the Elite Eight in a one-point loss to Georgetown. Austin Peay (18-10, 14-4), in Clarksville, will need to win the Ohio Valley tournament to be part of March Madness and has a two-game lead in the OVC. Belmont (19-8, 11-2), in Nashville, also needs a win in the Atlantic Sun tournament but leads its league and is looking for a third consecutive NCAA bid.
On the women's side, coach Pat Summitt's Tennessee team (23-2, 9-1) is the defending national champion, is ranked No. 3 and is built around player-of-the-year hopeful Candace Parker.
Vanderbilt (19-7, 8-3) fell one spot shy of the women's top 25 this week. Chattanooga's 18-game winning streak makes its women a heavy favorite to win the Southern Conference tournament. East Tennessee State (15-11, 11-2), in Johnson City, has a half-game lead in the Atlantic Sun. Middle Tennessee (16-10, 11-4), in Murfreesboro, is contending in the Sun Belt, where it trails Western Kentucky by two games but drew a vote in this week's coaches' poll.
Saturday night, however, there will be more at stake than bragging rights in the Volunteer State.
At 26-0, Memphis will be on course to enter the NCAA tournament unbeaten if it can get past Tennessee. The Tigers have four regular-season games left against Conference USA teams, the next two at home, and the conference tournament. Memphis' 45-game winning streak in the regular season includes 35 consecutive victories against C-USA opponents.
The 1991 UNLV team, which lost to Duke in the semifinals, was the last team to go into the NCAA tournament undefeated. "It probably would have helped if we had lost one," retired UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian says. "We never had a close game. I think nine points was the closest anybody had come to us all year. We never talked about the record or the streak, but the media always does. It's always out there."
The Tigers' regular-season streak is the longest since Indiana's 57 in a row from the 1974-75 season into the 1976-77 season, a winning binge that included the last undefeated season by a men's team, the 32-0 Hoosiers of 1975-76.
Calipari says the only time the word " 'undefeated' is going to have an effect on me is April 7, and that's after that last game" at the Final Four in San Antonio.
Tarkanian sees similarities between Memphis and his Las Vegas team. Neither was a member of a so-called power conference, and both thrived on a frenetic pace.
"We played pressure defense, and they're playing it now," Tarkanian says. "They're causing a lot of turnovers, the way we did. And they're driving the ball offensively."
Entering Wednesday at Tulane, where Calipari got his 400th career win, Memphis' average victory margin of 19.4 points ranked second nationally. The Tigers also were third in field goal defense, at 37.3%.
CBS analyst Billy Packer says Memphis' rise is no surprise, considering the city's rich history of high school powers. Packer says that talent base led him to apply in the 1970s for the Memphis coaching job, when the school still was named Memphis State. Instead, Gene Bartow got the job and took the 1973 Tigers to the Final Four championship game.
Memphis "probably has put out, per capita, more quality players than any city in the country, and for a long period of time," Packer says.
His other historical point of emphasis is Calipari is the fifth coach to have No. 1 teams at two schools — Massachusetts in the mid-1990s — and the only one who wasn't in a power conference either time.
"That's kind of amazing," Packer says. "John is obviously excellent."
With Tennessee as Memphis' last ranked opponent before the NCAA tournament, Packer has been stressing the importance of this game for the Tigers for the last month. "I think this game will really help them," Packer says. "I think this game will be really important for them, whether they win or lose, in their quest for the national championship."
Calipari stresses fun
So far this season, the only thing that has stopped Memphis is Calipari's whistle. When it sounded during practice Monday, the Tigers' shoes screeched against the hardwood like a dozen freight trains hitting the brakes. But when Calipari launched his lecture, it wasn't about technique, spacing or posting up. This was purely a reminder about the demeanor a team should have when it's unbeaten.
"You should be having a ball," Calipari shouted. "We create our own happiness."
To that end, Calipari has been beginning practices with a free throw tournament, a light way to address Memphis' most glaring weakness.
Through 25 games, Memphis was last in the NCAA rankings, at 328th, shooting 58.3% on free throws. Tennessee isn't much better, ranking 295th at 64.1%.
Calipari's penchant for finding silver linings didn't waver Saturday, when the No. 1-vs.-No. 2 matchup nearly was derailed in Memphis' one-point win at Alabama-Birmingham. "I looked at my team and I said, 'This is good, we need this,' " he says. "I need to learn now who will step up and make plays and who's going to pout and should be sitting on the bench."
The key playmaker was junior guard Chris Douglas-Roberts, whose 32 points included a three-point play with 6.5 seconds left. Junior guard Antonio Anderson added a season-high 27 points.
Calipari downplays his team's talent, saying, "Our program is not royalty. We have a bunch of ordinary guys who are talented trying to do extraordinary things."
But Douglas-Roberts has been bidding to be a first-team All-American while leading Memphis in scoring (17.9 points a game). Freshman point guard Derrick Rose is universally deemed destined for the NBA. Top rebounders Joey Dorsey, a senior, and Robert Dozier, a junior, also have pro prospects.
The UAB game demonstrated Memphis' refusal to succumb to the pressure that accompanies an unbeaten record.
"We have a bull's-eye on our back," Douglas-Roberts says. "We just have to keep our composure."
Calipari has been preaching to his team "pressure is a privilege," a catchphrase he stole after hearing tennis legend Billie Jean King had text-messaged it recently to women's tennis star Maria Sharapova.
"They've earned the right to feel this pressure," Calipari says of his Tigers.
What the UAB game also demonstrated is Memphis can expect to take every opponent's best punch. Literally, perhaps.
Anticipating victory, UAB's fans were poised to rush the court. When a game-ending UAB basket was ruled as too late, some fans took out their disappointment on the Tigers. Some were showered with water, beer and spit.
"It was ugly and almost turned into a melee," Calipari says. "They thought that they were winning the game, they went nuts. … UAB played an unbelievable game."
Tennessee off to best start
Auburn coach Jeff Lebo had a similar view of Tennessee after losing to the Vols on Wednesday.
"They are better than anybody we have played," Lebo says. "Their explosiveness offensively is what separates them. What makes it so hard is they have different people every night who can get you 18 to 19 points."
Sophomore Ramar Smith's 19 points against Auburn made him the sixth Vol to lead the team in scoring this season. Two other unrelated Smiths, sophomore Tyler and senior JaJuan, also are on that list, as is Chris Lofton, who moved into fifth place on the NCAA's career three-point list (at 402).
Tennessee is off to its best start in school history and seeking its first outright SEC title since 1967.
Tennessee's 30-game home winning streak includes a 76-58 blowout against Memphis last season. Duplicating that victory Saturday would elevate the Vols to No. 1 in the polls for the first time.
The teams play a similar style, with deep benches. Tennessee has 12 players averaging 10.6 minutes or more. Memphis has nine players averaging at least 14.1 minutes.
The other subplot is both coaches are eminently quotable, but neither has heaped the other with praise. Insiders at both schools say it's highly unlikely Calipari and Pearl ever will be breaking bread together. The tension apparently stems from recruiting run-ins over sophomore guard Willie Kemp, who's at Memphis, and sophomore Wayne Chism, Tennessee's center.
In remarks on his radio show after Wednesday's game, Pearl said Memphis has "four or five NBA players" and is "talent-based." He added, "They're not a complicated team to prepare for."
Asked this week about his relationship with Pearl, Calipari strayed to comments about how many miles apart the schools are (almost 400 across the state) and how Pearl has put men's basketball on par with Tennessee's teams in football, baseball and women's basketball.
"He's made his niche, and I've got to give him credit," Calipari says.
Saturday, only one will leave the court credited with ruling the state.
Contributing: **** Patrick
It's also nice to have Gameday at a TN event that doesnt involve footbal for a change!
GO VOLS!
In Tennessee, a vintage season for hoop dreams
By Tom Weir, USA TODAY
MEMPHIS — In the buildup to Saturday's historic in-state showdown between No. 1 Memphis and No. 2 Tennessee, tickets have been listed for as much as $10,000 on Stubhub.com.
There's no disputing the state of Tennessee has never witnessed a bigger matchup between any of its teams in men's basketball. Memphis coach John Calipari likens the atmosphere to a Super Bowl, and Tennessee alum Peyton Manning will bolster that contention by jetting in with younger brother Eli in tow.
In the Memphis rooting section at FedEx Forum, the iconic role will fall to Priscilla Presley, widow of "The King." So yeah, this is big. Bigger than Elvis' hair. Bigger than Dolly Parton's … well, you get the idea.
"The college basketball scene in Tennessee, if it's ever been better, somebody has got to tell me when," says Calipari, whose team is undefeated and a unanimous No. 1 in the polls.
Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, whose team is 24-2, 11-1 in the Southeastern Conference, adds, "I'm proud of what is going to take place on Saturday. An event like 1 vs. 2 is reserved usually for Tobacco Road or Indiana or Kentucky. But it's right here, in Tennessee."
Also right there in Tennessee are eight other strong contenders for the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments. The only other states with similar prospects of being represented by at least 10 teams in the two events are California and Texas, each with many more Division I schools than Tennessee has.
Vanderbilt's 16th-ranked men (22-4, 7-4 SEC) get a shot at Tennessee on Tuesday in Nashville. Last season, the Commodores reached the Sweet 16 and missed advancing to the Elite Eight in a one-point loss to Georgetown. Austin Peay (18-10, 14-4), in Clarksville, will need to win the Ohio Valley tournament to be part of March Madness and has a two-game lead in the OVC. Belmont (19-8, 11-2), in Nashville, also needs a win in the Atlantic Sun tournament but leads its league and is looking for a third consecutive NCAA bid.
On the women's side, coach Pat Summitt's Tennessee team (23-2, 9-1) is the defending national champion, is ranked No. 3 and is built around player-of-the-year hopeful Candace Parker.
Vanderbilt (19-7, 8-3) fell one spot shy of the women's top 25 this week. Chattanooga's 18-game winning streak makes its women a heavy favorite to win the Southern Conference tournament. East Tennessee State (15-11, 11-2), in Johnson City, has a half-game lead in the Atlantic Sun. Middle Tennessee (16-10, 11-4), in Murfreesboro, is contending in the Sun Belt, where it trails Western Kentucky by two games but drew a vote in this week's coaches' poll.
Saturday night, however, there will be more at stake than bragging rights in the Volunteer State.
At 26-0, Memphis will be on course to enter the NCAA tournament unbeaten if it can get past Tennessee. The Tigers have four regular-season games left against Conference USA teams, the next two at home, and the conference tournament. Memphis' 45-game winning streak in the regular season includes 35 consecutive victories against C-USA opponents.
The 1991 UNLV team, which lost to Duke in the semifinals, was the last team to go into the NCAA tournament undefeated. "It probably would have helped if we had lost one," retired UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian says. "We never had a close game. I think nine points was the closest anybody had come to us all year. We never talked about the record or the streak, but the media always does. It's always out there."
The Tigers' regular-season streak is the longest since Indiana's 57 in a row from the 1974-75 season into the 1976-77 season, a winning binge that included the last undefeated season by a men's team, the 32-0 Hoosiers of 1975-76.
Calipari says the only time the word " 'undefeated' is going to have an effect on me is April 7, and that's after that last game" at the Final Four in San Antonio.
Tarkanian sees similarities between Memphis and his Las Vegas team. Neither was a member of a so-called power conference, and both thrived on a frenetic pace.
"We played pressure defense, and they're playing it now," Tarkanian says. "They're causing a lot of turnovers, the way we did. And they're driving the ball offensively."
Entering Wednesday at Tulane, where Calipari got his 400th career win, Memphis' average victory margin of 19.4 points ranked second nationally. The Tigers also were third in field goal defense, at 37.3%.
CBS analyst Billy Packer says Memphis' rise is no surprise, considering the city's rich history of high school powers. Packer says that talent base led him to apply in the 1970s for the Memphis coaching job, when the school still was named Memphis State. Instead, Gene Bartow got the job and took the 1973 Tigers to the Final Four championship game.
Memphis "probably has put out, per capita, more quality players than any city in the country, and for a long period of time," Packer says.
His other historical point of emphasis is Calipari is the fifth coach to have No. 1 teams at two schools — Massachusetts in the mid-1990s — and the only one who wasn't in a power conference either time.
"That's kind of amazing," Packer says. "John is obviously excellent."
With Tennessee as Memphis' last ranked opponent before the NCAA tournament, Packer has been stressing the importance of this game for the Tigers for the last month. "I think this game will really help them," Packer says. "I think this game will be really important for them, whether they win or lose, in their quest for the national championship."
Calipari stresses fun
So far this season, the only thing that has stopped Memphis is Calipari's whistle. When it sounded during practice Monday, the Tigers' shoes screeched against the hardwood like a dozen freight trains hitting the brakes. But when Calipari launched his lecture, it wasn't about technique, spacing or posting up. This was purely a reminder about the demeanor a team should have when it's unbeaten.
"You should be having a ball," Calipari shouted. "We create our own happiness."
To that end, Calipari has been beginning practices with a free throw tournament, a light way to address Memphis' most glaring weakness.
Through 25 games, Memphis was last in the NCAA rankings, at 328th, shooting 58.3% on free throws. Tennessee isn't much better, ranking 295th at 64.1%.
Calipari's penchant for finding silver linings didn't waver Saturday, when the No. 1-vs.-No. 2 matchup nearly was derailed in Memphis' one-point win at Alabama-Birmingham. "I looked at my team and I said, 'This is good, we need this,' " he says. "I need to learn now who will step up and make plays and who's going to pout and should be sitting on the bench."
The key playmaker was junior guard Chris Douglas-Roberts, whose 32 points included a three-point play with 6.5 seconds left. Junior guard Antonio Anderson added a season-high 27 points.
Calipari downplays his team's talent, saying, "Our program is not royalty. We have a bunch of ordinary guys who are talented trying to do extraordinary things."
But Douglas-Roberts has been bidding to be a first-team All-American while leading Memphis in scoring (17.9 points a game). Freshman point guard Derrick Rose is universally deemed destined for the NBA. Top rebounders Joey Dorsey, a senior, and Robert Dozier, a junior, also have pro prospects.
The UAB game demonstrated Memphis' refusal to succumb to the pressure that accompanies an unbeaten record.
"We have a bull's-eye on our back," Douglas-Roberts says. "We just have to keep our composure."
Calipari has been preaching to his team "pressure is a privilege," a catchphrase he stole after hearing tennis legend Billie Jean King had text-messaged it recently to women's tennis star Maria Sharapova.
"They've earned the right to feel this pressure," Calipari says of his Tigers.
What the UAB game also demonstrated is Memphis can expect to take every opponent's best punch. Literally, perhaps.
Anticipating victory, UAB's fans were poised to rush the court. When a game-ending UAB basket was ruled as too late, some fans took out their disappointment on the Tigers. Some were showered with water, beer and spit.
"It was ugly and almost turned into a melee," Calipari says. "They thought that they were winning the game, they went nuts. … UAB played an unbelievable game."
Tennessee off to best start
Auburn coach Jeff Lebo had a similar view of Tennessee after losing to the Vols on Wednesday.
"They are better than anybody we have played," Lebo says. "Their explosiveness offensively is what separates them. What makes it so hard is they have different people every night who can get you 18 to 19 points."
Sophomore Ramar Smith's 19 points against Auburn made him the sixth Vol to lead the team in scoring this season. Two other unrelated Smiths, sophomore Tyler and senior JaJuan, also are on that list, as is Chris Lofton, who moved into fifth place on the NCAA's career three-point list (at 402).
Tennessee is off to its best start in school history and seeking its first outright SEC title since 1967.
Tennessee's 30-game home winning streak includes a 76-58 blowout against Memphis last season. Duplicating that victory Saturday would elevate the Vols to No. 1 in the polls for the first time.
The teams play a similar style, with deep benches. Tennessee has 12 players averaging 10.6 minutes or more. Memphis has nine players averaging at least 14.1 minutes.
The other subplot is both coaches are eminently quotable, but neither has heaped the other with praise. Insiders at both schools say it's highly unlikely Calipari and Pearl ever will be breaking bread together. The tension apparently stems from recruiting run-ins over sophomore guard Willie Kemp, who's at Memphis, and sophomore Wayne Chism, Tennessee's center.
In remarks on his radio show after Wednesday's game, Pearl said Memphis has "four or five NBA players" and is "talent-based." He added, "They're not a complicated team to prepare for."
Asked this week about his relationship with Pearl, Calipari strayed to comments about how many miles apart the schools are (almost 400 across the state) and how Pearl has put men's basketball on par with Tennessee's teams in football, baseball and women's basketball.
"He's made his niche, and I've got to give him credit," Calipari says.
Saturday, only one will leave the court credited with ruling the state.
Contributing: **** Patrick
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