But optimism is still in order
In Saturday’s ACC Action, Tennessee topped Louisville 77-55 and Florida State cooked Rice 73-65.
Pat Kelsey gets a lot of credit for scheduling Tennessee this early. He’s barely gotten started and there is a lot of work to do and pessimism to purge.
Tennessee dominated this game but the weird, sluggish Louisville we saw under Kenny Payne isn’t there. At least the Cardinals competed. That didn't happen a lot over the last two years.
After the game, Kelsey had this to say:
“Obviously extremely disappointed. Yum! Center was electric. We asked people to come out and they came out in a big way. As elite of a college basketball environment as you’re going to find anywhere...
“It’s the first time this team has gotten punched in the mouth and faced adversity. Since June 5, I sat up in my press conference when we signed this team and they’ve had a lot of attaboys. A lot of pats on the back. A lot of high fives.
“I mean what I’ve said over the last eight months or whatever it is, five months since this team has been together..that meeting in there was about walking out and having our circle tighter than ever. Walking out of that room and having a resolve about then as they go back to their dorms and like all kids do they check their social media. All the people that have been telling them how good they are, crushing them. That’s just how it is. That’s the world.
“I just told them, don’t blink. Don’t blink. Look to the guy next to you and love him more than ever. Don’t blame anybody else. Don’t complain about anybody else. Don’t get defensive. Just know that we have to go back to work on Monday and get better. And we will. That’s it.”
“[T]here was two or three possessions where it looked like the five guys on the floor had given up, right. No pun intended but it looked like we waved the white flag. We called a timeout and got after them and they responded and went out and played hard and continued to compete right down to the very end. We’re going to play the Tennessees going forward. Teams of that standard and we’re going to be ready for it next time, I can promise you that.”
It wasn’t what anyone wanted, but if you don’t see the change from Payne’s teams, or at least his inscrutable approach, you need to look harder. This team will get better.
One bright note: Louisville forced 20 turnovers.
Starting 2-0 isn’t that much to brag about normally, but given what’s happened with Florida State over the last couple of years, it probably feels pretty good.
Anomaly alert! Jamir Watkins scored 30 points. When is the last time someone on a Leonard Hamilton team scored 30 points?
As it turns out, he got 22 foul shot attempts and hit 14 of those.
Defense is how you measure a Leonard Hamilton team and by that standard, they did well, forcing 17 turnovers and limiting Rice to 32 percent on threes (but just eight made) and 35.7 percent overall.
Are they back?
Too soon to say.
Three games on Sunday as Georgia Tech hosts North Florida, Wake Forest plays Michigan in the Greensboro Coliseum (no one is calling it First Horizon Coliseum, you colossal suckers) and Binghamton heads down to Miami to play the ‘Canes.
Sunday’s ACC Action
