BigOrangeBasketball.comTennessee Basketball

With the recent hirings of John Calipari at Kentucky and Anthony Grant at Alabama, the bar for success in the Southeastern Conference has been raised considerably.

The SEC’s first $4 million-per-year basketball coach, Calipari, will certainly up the ante in the SEC East and the conference in total, for that matter.

Not since the days that Joe B. Hall roamed the sidelines at Kentucky will the Wildcats be so formidable in personnel.  Hall may not have been the best bench coach, but he was one of the best recruiting head coaches of his day, and the Wildcats were loaded with All-Americans under Hall.

With Calipari now at the helm at Kentucky, he will no doubt begin to recruit the kind of players to Kentucky that the Bluegrass faithful haven’t seen since the Hall years.

In less than two months on the job, Calipari has already elevated Kentucky’s 2009 recruiting class to fourth-best in the nation with two April signees, including 6-9, five-star center DeMarcus Cousins.

There’s no disputing the fact that Calipari can recruit.  In three of his last four seasons at Memphis, Calipari’s recruiting classes each ranked in the top six in the country.  And had Calipari not bolted for Kentucky, it would have been four out of five.  But now it’s four out of five with the last class coming at Kentucky.

And you can say what you want about Calipari’s ability to coach, but you can’t deny the fact that he and Billy Donovan are the only coaches in the SEC to coach in a national championship game.

Perhaps the best hire of the season was one that garnered virtually no national attention, but Anthony Grant’s hiring at Alabama will jump-start the Tide basketball program into the national limelight in a hurry.

My inner coaching circle all tell me that Grant is the real deal, and that again is bad news for the rest of the SEC. 

Grant was a long-time assistant to Donovan at Florida, but left three years ago to become the head coach at Virginia Commonwealth, where he led the Rams to a 76-25 record in three seasons, including two NCAA Tournament appearances.

A go0d coach at Alabama can have a great program and can do so by recruiting successfully in a 150-mile radius of Tuscaloosa.  Many may be too young to remember the great C.M. Newton teams at Alabama in the 70s or the Wimp Sanderson teams in the 80s and early 90s, but Alabama had some great basketball teams back then with nary a player outside the state of Alabama.

Alabama will not be on the national radar to start the next college basketball season, but the Tide will win the SEC West next year and will be ranked in the nation’s Top 20 by no later than late February.

Two of the SEC’s most storied basketball programs are on their way back in a hurry.  What’s the rest of the SEC to do?

(This is the final part of a three-part series on the current state of  Tennessee’s men’s basketball program.)

In its fourth season under Bruce Pearl, the Tennessee men’s basketball team won the SEC East and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive year.

But it wasn’t a typical season for a Pearl team at Tennessee in 2008-09.

The Vols lost a double-digit number of games (13) overall and six in the SEC, the most conference losses ever for a Pearl-coached team at Tennessee.

It was said by Pearl on several occasions during the course of this past season that his team wasn’t tough enough…and Pearl was right.

The Vols were beaten up several times, most notably by Kansas in the pre-conference season, and by Kentucky twice during the regular season.  Even Gonzaga, a team not typically known for its physicality, took it to Tennessee twice this season with its aggressive play.

What was clearly missing from the Tennessee team this season was a noticeable advantage in terms of physical strength versus its opponents.

Not only is Tennessee losing the battle of physical toughness in its own conference, it is losing it to many of the nation’s Top 25 teams as well.

Just look at the most recent Final Four.  North Carolina, Michigan State, UConn and Villanova were all big, strong, athletic teams.  Tennessee was not in the same league with these teams, either on the court or in the weight room.

Even in the SEC, I would have to rank the Vols no better than fifth in terms of physical strength this past season behind LSU, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.  And, oh by the way, the Vols were 2-4 against those teams this year.

By now, Pearl’s early morning weight-room sessions with his team are well-documented, but looking at the physical stature of most of the guys on the team, I think you have to ask yourself what are they truly getting done during those sessions?

If you believe the official height and weight measurements of the team provided by the sports information department, you have to wonder.

At 6-7 and 215 pounds, Tyler Smith is no bigger now than he was when he joined the team as a sophomore when he was also listed at 215 pounds.

Wayne Chism has actually lost three pounds since he came to UT as a freshman.  Josh Tabb has added three pounds.  J.P. Prince hasn’t added a pound.  Cameron Tatum is 6-6, but weighs under 200 pounds.

When he first arrived at Tennessee, Pearl said fans would quickly notice a difference in the physical appearance of his players.  He said they would be cut, strong and well-defined.

If you look at the players who have been in the program for at least two years, it’s clear that it’s not the case.

I found it interesting, enlightening even, when Lane Kiffin was hired as the new football coach that one of the first things he did was hire a new strength coach.  Hmmm.

If Pearl and the Vols want to return to Top 25 program status in college basketball, they must begin to get it done in the weight room.

A complete re-evaluation of the strength program for Tennessee basketball is in order.  The Vols must get stronger to get better.

I will have more to say about Pearl’s recent association with the Memphis job and his new contract when the details of the new contract are released.  I will reserve commentary about it until then.

In Part One of this series, a close examination of Bruce Pearl’s signees and their contributions to the program were discussed.  But that is only one side of the recruiting equation.

Perhaps equally as important or damaging as the case may be, are the players that get away that contribute significantly at other schools.

This is particularly significant in Tennessee’s situation, and Pearl’s case specifically. 

As was documented in Part 1 of this series, while the Vols have signed too many players in Pearl’s first four years that have missed, Pearl and the Vols have also missed on several players, most notably in-state players, who at least in hindsight, could have helped the Vols immeasurably, particularly this past season.

 The following is my list of the top 5 in-state players who Tennessee passed on during the recruiting process who have gone on to have significant careers at competing Division I programs:

Terrico White, Memphis (Ole Miss) – SEC Freshman of the Year and second-team All-SEC. Fourth leading scorer in conference play with 18.4 ppg average.

Terrence Oglesby, Cleveland (Clemson) - Started 31-32 games for the Tigers this season as a sophomore. Third leading scorer with 13.2 ppg average. Third in ACC with 92 three-point field goals made this season. Shot 38.8% from three.

Alex Renfroe, Hermitage, TN (Belmont) – Averaged 16.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game this past season.  Was named  Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Year.  Shredded Tennessee for 30 points in a game in Knoxville back in December, and singlehandedly led the Bruins to near upset of Duke in last year’s NCAA Tournament.

Barry Stewart, Shelbyville (Mississippi State) - Started all 36 games this season, averaging 13.4 points per game. Shot 38.8% from three in conference play.

Gerald Robinson, Nashville (TSU) – Fifth-leading scorer in the Ohio Valley Conference this past season averaging 17.8 points per game.  Has scored more than 1,000 career points in just two seasons for the Tigers.

Note that Elliott Williams (Duke), Maurice Miller (Georgia Tech) and Willie Kemp (Memphis) did not make the list.  Pearl and his staff recruited each of these players hard.  They just chose to go elsewhere.  I can’t fault Pearl for that.

But the failed recruitment of Williams, Miller and Kemp does point to one strategic miscalculation on Pearl and his staff’s part when it has come to recruiting.

Often, Pearl and his staff have focused so heavily on a few key recruits that they didn’t have a backup plan when these players selected other schools.

Terrico White at Ole Miss is a perfect case in point.  White was offered a scholarship by Arkansas, Georgia State, Middle Tennessee and Ole Miss.  The Vols didn’t  recruit White, and they certainly didn’t offer.  You tell me. Do you think Terrico White could have helped Tennessee this year?  Next year?

Same with Terrence Oglesby at Clemson.  Grew up in Cleveland, Tenn., less than 100 miles from Knoxville, core Big Orange country.  Phenomenal three-point shooter. Made 92 three’s this past season.  Not recruited by Tennessee.

Admittedly, Pearl has succeeded beyond even the most optimistic of Vol baskeball fans in the aggregate during his first four seasons at Tennessee.

No one could have imagined the Vols winning the SEC East in three of Pearl’s four years.  No one could have imagined the Vols would be a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament in two of those four seasons.  No one could have imagined that Thompson-Boling Arena would be virtually sold out for every game the past two seasons.

However, there’s no denying the program took a step backward this year.  The Vols lost 13 games, dropped out of the Top 25 for most of the season, and were a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the lowest seed ever for the Vols under Pearl.

Pearl even had to change the way his team played this year.  He called off the press, slowed the game down, and the Vols became a much more methodical half-court offensive team.

There are reasons these things happened this year. It wasn’t a fluke or simple aberration.  These things happened this year largely because Pearl and his staff have missed badly, for the most part, in recruiting the last four years.

So how does Pearl fix the recruiting problems?  He must address two issues.

First, he must cast a broader net and have contingency plans in place when or if any of his top recruiting targets choose other schools.

Secondly, he has to recruit the state of Tennessee much more seriously, at least the eastern two-thirds of the state.  During his tenure thus far, Pearl has only signed two players from Tennessee…Wayne Chism and Philip Jurick.

It’s hard to justify how you let Oglesby and Stewart get away.  And the Vols appear to be ignoring rising Knox Fulton senior Jalen Steele this year.

When the recruiting improves, the Vols will improve.  And it needs to improve.