Xavier @ Tennessee Thoughts: - When I watch exhibitions, I don’t look at scores and I don’t look at box scores. My eyes might be telling me different things, and I don’t want them to be tricked by the box score. Sometimes it matches up, sometimes it doesn’t. - No Lundblande - Nwoko looks like he’s put on about 15lbs of muscle. Dude is a house now. He was working people when he was skinny. For those who haven’t watched him, ultimate motor, fiery fiery player, great finisher. Definitely a NBA guy. Force on the glass, both ends. Looks all big east with the added weight. - Hill taking no time to adjust, absolute stud on perimeter D, and just has such good spurtability on O, I love guards that know how to change pace, he’s a great one to watch if you are a young guard trying to figure out how to play at a high level. - Dewayne Brown gives you a lot of the same things that Nwoko does, just not at quite the same length and not as strong a finisher, still another monster and Tenn’s best big. Watching him and Nwoko battle for a board, honestly you could entertain yourself all night. - Juke and Dai dai, we know what they can do, these guys can get you offense at all 3 levels. It’s going to be a bit of a feeling out period and playing together for chemistry. We know the ability is there. Both need to work on defense. - Pozzato - it’s been over a year, but still such a smooth scorer, a guy you can trust to rebound and defend, unselfish, will keep getting better as he gets his legs back under him after injury. - Like the aggression from Haralson, didn't settle early, taking it to the rack, which defenses are loaded up on other guys so he will have lots of opps this year. Sooo many options from Tennessee, as stated before it’s a feeling out process on chemistry and how it all fits. Settled late, but coachable. Gotta defend guys bigger than him. - Milicevic is a great fit next to Nwoko, really nice inside out duo as a front court. Between him and Dominguez you really have to close out on this Xavier team. Think you want to get up in their shorts and make them put it on the floor. - Everyone in these Xavier line ups is 6’7+, you see the vision, long and switch everything. With Westry in, even the PG is 6’6. - Chitikoudis, another high energy guy. Oh you thought you were getting a breather when Nwoko was out? - Borovicanin another long body that can handle like a guard and create some mismatches. It’s silly he can play and Jaylen Washington can’t. This is gonna be a weird year. Tennessee needs Washington. - Was skeptical about Rubin’s motor at Loyola, and I still feel that way. He’s got the length and frame, but question the skills and the motor and he’s kinda soft. Lue is the opposite, doesn’t have the gifts, but he plays hard, and will give you strong D and connectivity. - Thought Aligbe also was very productive, just versatile can play on the wing, can be in the post. How many of these guys does Xavier have? Seems like an infinite spawn of the 6’9 hybrid wing bigs. - Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get to Tru Washington, but he’s come alive in 2H. Another pretty known commodity. Should be the best guard on the team. Thought he spent a lot of time trying to get others involved in 1H and got a little more aggressive in the 2H I had this game as a top 25 matchup and I still believe that to be true. Xavier is live, dude. They could win the Big East. Do I think they will? No, but they can contend. They can beat UConn/St Johns on a good night. They can compete with Nova/Marquette for 3rd. I think the Big East is stacked this year. They have 6 or 7 tourney teams. I do want to see teams make these big wings put it on the floor, that I think is the first way I would try to counter them. The clear weakness of Tennessee resides in the front court. But that being said, I think all you need from the front court is to rebound and defend. This is a team that I still think can make a deep March run because of the amount of scoring options on this team. It’s going to take them longer to figure it out bc you have a lot of guys coming in from high usage roles. Can they all buy in? Do you want to face Hill, Dai dai, Juke in March? Barnes is going to make Haralson better. The sky is not falling, this is going to be a work in progress. They’re not going to have it figured out by Duke exh either. Let’s see how they grow.