2010-11 Tennessee Basketball Predictions

The Vols are heading into this season facing quite a bit of uncertainty as they look to replace several key players from last year’s squad. Nevertheless, the team has high hopes for themselves heading into the year after they made it to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history last season.

Bruce Pearl has taken the Vols to the NCAA Tournament each of the past five years, including three appearances in the Sweet 16, and will look to advance his team past the opening weekend again this season. It won’t be an easy time getting to that point this season, however, as the Vols will have to replace three of their best players from last year’s squad that were seniors. If their younger players can step up and match the lost production, then Tennessee will be one of the top teams in the SEC this season.

Frontcourt: The Vols biggest adjustment this year will be trying to replace Wayne Chism, who put up a team best 12.6 points per game last season and was one of their top defensive stoppers. Tobias Harris, a 6’8? freshman power forward, will likely be relied upon to play a lot of minutes, and will be expected to occasionally step out and shoot from distance to help spread the floor. Kenny Hall should vie for a decent amount minutes at power forward this season, and could also play some center seeing he is one of only three players on the Vols roster that is 6’9? or taller.

Brain Williams played well in the postseason last year, where he put up 7.5 points and 10.3 rebounds per contest. Considering he is the only true center the Vols have on their squad, Williams will need to have a big season if the Vols want to try to make a return trip to the Elite Eight or further this year.

Steven Pearl, Renaldo Woolridge, John Fields, and Jeronne Maymon will play off the bench this season, giving Tennessee plenty of depth in their front court.

Backcourt: Melvin Goins will be tasked with leading the squad at the one this year. He will have to get better if wants to replace the production of Bobby Maze from last year, who put up 9.4 points per game and had one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in the SEC last year. Goins averaged 5.3 points and 1.8 assists per contest last year, and I would expect both of those averages to rise this season.

Cameron Tatum and Scotty Hopson will be two of the most depended upon players on the Tennessee roster this season. Tatum posted only 7.4 points and 1.1 assists per night last year, but he is a pretty efficient shooter and doesn’t waste a lot of opportunities trying to force attempts. He made nearly 39% from behind the arc and 48% overall from the field.

Hopson was the second best scorer from the Tennessee team last season, when he averaged 12.2 points per contest. He is highly explosive on the wing and has the ability to take over the game offensively. He will need to stop turning the ball over so much, however, as he gave it away 78 times last year.

Pick – 2nd place in the SEC: Tennessee lost more players from last year than any other conference team outside of Kentucky. Unfortunately for Tennessee, their incoming freshmen aren’t quite on the same skill level as the ones heading up north to play for John Calipari and the Wildcats.

However, if Tennessee’s young players can step up into bigger roles this season and play solid defense, there aren’t many other school in the conference that are as gifted as the Vols. I would anticipate Bruce Pearl to get enough out of this team to garner a decent seed in the NCAA Tournament, but I’m not sure they have enough talent to make it back to the Elite Eight.

About the Author:
Connect with the author via: Twitter - Google+
WordPress › Error

There has been a critical error on this website.

Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.