We’re two weeks into the college hoops season and locally, we’ve already had some fascinating story lines to keep up with. Belmont is trying to build their at-large resume in case they don’t win the OVC Tournament, Vanderbilt is trying to build on momentum from the end of last season, Tennessee finally has an NBA-level point guard and an experienced team looking to avenge their ugly finish to last season and of course Memphis has two of the best freshman in the country and if everything comes together, can be a team that contends for a title. We’re only two weeks in, but I have some thoughts on how these local and national storylines are shaping out. So after these first two weeks, it’s time for me to unleash the stream of hoops consciousness known as the Elijah Campbell Hoops Notebook.
BELMONT– Coming into this season, I made the argument that Belmont had the most important non-conference season of any team in this area and had one that many in the country will pay close attention to, especially if they fall short of an OVC Tournament title again.
The pursuit of the spotless resume died early. Belmont dropped a game on the road to a good Ohio team in a game where Ohio seemingly couldn’t miss from three and Belmont couldn’t defend the three-point line with enough consistency to win and it was the Bobcats who ended up with the big win to put on their record. The loss doesn’t look as a resume breaker, however, as Ohio picked up a double digit road win against a Cleveland State team and gave Kentucky fits up until midway through the second half at Rupp Arena.
But what Belmont did well was bounce back. They beat the brakes off Evansville and turned around to beat a really good Furman team (who was fresh off a win at Louisville) in a thrilling overtime win.
In that Furman win, they looked like vintage Belmont again: excellent off-ball movement, lethal and timely three-point shooting and just flat out being more efficient than the other team on the floor.
The Bruins took care of business against Kennesaw State and on Monday, they will have their biggest opportunity yet: a road game against LSU. The win would completely negate the Ohio loss (especially if Ohio continues to play well and plays through the season with a favorable NET ranking). It’s not a “must win” per se, but a win on Monday will do wonders for the Bruins come March.
MEMPHIS– It only took about seven minutes into their season opening win against Tennessee Tech to get me hooked. This team is similar to other Penny Hardaway coached Memphis teams in the sense of them being tough defensively (they are already second on the country in defensive efficiency according to KenPom). But what separates this team is the watch-ability on the offensive side. They still only rank 48th in offensive efficiency on KenPom but if you compare this to his last two seasons (210th and 117th final rankings), this team is the 2016 Warriors.
The talent is the definitely there with high profile recruits Jalen Duren and Emoni Bates. Bates came in with all the hype and fanfare (and has really shot the ball well at 41% from three on six attempts per game) but Duren has been a monster.
He’s already averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds per game and against Western Kentucky, scored 22 points and grabbed 19 rebounds while blocking five shots. Memphis is improved offensively and as the season rolls along, should get a lot better. They are definitely already meeting expectations in the “fun to watch” category.
TENNESSEE– The Vols come into this season with a fun mix of optimism and a hangover of last season’s nightmarish finish. Last season, if you played the NCAA Tournament in November and December, they would probably be your national champions. In January through March, they weren’t even a top 25 team in college basketball.
There’s still a ton of experience on this team with super senior John Fulkerson returning (who has seemingly been there since the Don DeVoe era) as well as Victor Bailey Jr, Josiah Jordan-James and Santiago Vescovi. They also bring in the best HS point guard in America from last year in Kennedy Chandler and top 25-recruit Brandon Huntley-Hatfield. Loads of experience, loads of talented youth.
So far, they have beaten up on UT-Martin and ETSU in impressive fashion. Villanova kicked their teeth in on Saturday in a game where Tennessee had only 11 points and 14 turnovers with 2:55 left in the first half. Villanova was the better team and simply just executed their own game better than Tennessee did. The games the Vols will lose this year will be because they get sloppy with the basketball.
They looked much better against North Carolina and picked up what I thought was a very impressive win, mostly because of the discovery they made during the process. Freshman PG Zakai Zeigler scored 18 points on 7/10 shooting and 3/5 from three off the bench in his first time getting meaningful minutes in a meaningful game. If he can give the Vols 25 good minutes like that on a nightly basis, they can be a quality 8-man deep rotation which can do wonders during the dog days of the season.
One last thing on the Vols: the most interesting development for this team compared to last is the shot selection. All of Rick Barnes’ teams at multiple stops have been mid-range jumper happy. At Texas, there were plenty of sets his teams deployed that hunted out those shots. This year, the Vols’ shot chart have started looking more and more like Alabama’s and Villanova’s: more three’s less mid-range J’s and more shots around the rim. This Vols team is attempting over 27 triples per game after these first four games. Last year, they attempted 20. The most the Vols have ever attempted per game since Rick Barnes became the coach in 2015? 22. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be better offensively (it helps they are hitting 37% of those so far), but it means they will more than likely be more efficient and will be a storyline to monitor as the season moves along.
VANDERBILT– The Commodores took care of business against lowly Alabama State and Texas State in their first two games. They failed their first real test against VCU…miserably.
It was an all-time stinker: only 37 total points, 2/25 from the three-point line and a vomit inducing 5:21 assist to turnover ratio. VCU’s pressing and trapping defense embarrassed Scotty Pippen Jr and Vanderbilt.
But they got a chance to bounce back: and they did. Vanderbilt throttled defending Big South champion Winthrop (who I still see as a B+ quality mid-major) without Scotty Pippen Jr being their leading or even second leading scorer. Jordan Wright has shown some tremendous progress as a scorer (he scored 28 points on only 13 shots against Winthrop) and according to Jerry Stackhouse, is the epitome of what he wants his program to be. Wright has learned from failure, been a team player and has built his confidence to the point where he can be the scoring crutch Vanderbilt was looking for when Dylan Disu went down with an injury late last season.
The Dores still need Liam Robbins to come back from his injury and depth will still be an issue but if they can survive games in which Scotty Pippen Jr can’t carry them like he did almost all of last year, they can finish in the middle of the SEC, which would be a tremendous improvement.
ONE LAST THING: I still don’t expect much from Middle Tennessee State this year. They’ll more than likely scratch and claw to try to even qualify for a spot in the C-USA Tournament like that have the last few seasons. My optimism for the program is at an all-time low. However, they did beat Winthrop at home this week (whom I have already praised in this column as a quality mid-major opponent).
That’s an impressive win and deserves to be shouted out here. Donovan Sims and that program have gone through some incredibly difficult seasons but his 16-point performance helped lead them to a big confident boosting win. They’ll need DeAndre Dishman to be healthy all year, they’ll need consistency from players who have shown flashes like Eli Lawrence and they have to be able to carry over all the momentum they can into conference play this season if they want to avoid another embarrassing year. But a win against Winthrop is a small start.
Elijah Campbell is the Executive Producer for Darren, Daunic & Chase (Weekdays 10 am-2 pm) as well as the co-host of 102.5 The Game’s newest basketball podcast “Courtside with Campbell and Knezovic”. Follow him on Twitter @E_Campbell3
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