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Allan Houston

One of the classiest players ever to suit up for the Big Orange, Allan Houston is the fourth member of my Vol All-Century Team starting five.

Houston joins previously-announced Bernard King, Ernie Grunfeld and Dale Ellis as members of my all-time Vol starting five.

Originally a Louisville signee out of high school in Louisville, Ky, Houston reversed course and came to Tennessee with is father Wade Houston who became Tennessee’s head basketball coach following the dismissal of Don DeVoe in 1989.

And while Houston never enjoyed much team success during his four-year (1990-93) career with the Vols, his individual talent could not be denied.

At the conclusion of his four years at Tennessee, Houston was the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,801 points, and he remains UT’s all-time leading scorer to this day.  In fact, Houston is the second all-time leading scorer in the history of the Southeastern Conference, trailing only LSU’s Pete Maravich.

Houston was a two-time second team All-American at UT and remains today with Grunfeld the only four-time, first-team All-SEC players in Tennessee history.

He almost single-handedly led the Vols in 1991 to the finals of the SEC tournament where he was named tournament MVP.

Unfortunately, the teams that Houston played on at Tennessee weren’t very good and that sometimes overshadowed his talents.  In fact, most teams would focus most of their defensive attention toward Houston, but they still couldn’t stop him. 

I remember first-hand Houston’s performance at that SEC tournament.  The Vols, who finished in last place in the SEC during the regular season that year, raced through the field at the tournament which was played at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym.  Houston put the Vols on his back and carried them to the finals where they lost to Alabama.

I recall saying to myself during that SEC tournament in Nashville that Houston was really good.  He wasn’t flashy, and he didn’t draw undue attention to himself, but he could really play…shoot, handle the ball and pass.  He just didn’t have much help during his career at UT, but it didn’t stop him from becoming a great, great player and Tennessee’s all-time leading scorer.

His jersey will one day soon hang from the rafters of Thompson-Boling Arena, joining those of King and Grunfeld.

Wayne Chism

With Tennessee’s 87-73 victory against Indianapolis last night, it is clear now more than ever that head coach Bruce Pearl and his coaching staff have the biggest coaching challenge in front of them that they’ve ever had at Tennessee.

While the talent level of this year’s team may be much improved over Pearl’s first three teams at Tennessee, the experience factor is not. 

When Bruce Pearl arrived at Tennessee three years ago, he had a three-year starter at point guard in C.J. Watson and a sophomore off-guard in Chris Lofton whose basketball IQ was off the charts.   He also had one of the savviest coaches on the floor in Dane Bradshaw, and a couple of experienced front court players returning in Major Wingate and Andre Patterson.

This season, Pearl doesn’t have a point guard who has logged even one minute of playing time in a Tennessee uniform, and he returns virtually no experience on the wings, save for a few early-season games played last year by Cameron Tatum. 

Couple that with the fact that three players who were being counted on heavily prior to the start of the season have missed most, if not all, of preseason practice and Pearl has quite a challenge on his hands.

Are the Vols the 13th best team in the country right now?  Probably not, but they don’t need to be right now.

Even Pearl admitted last night that “we get beat by Chattanooga tonight.”  But he also said, “we don’t play ‘em tonight, we play ‘em in two weeks.”

The most important thing for Pearl right now is to know what he has, and then put the pieces together.  With injuries and eligibility issues, putting this team together has been a challenge for Pearl.  It was made evident last night by the fact that the Vols could not put away a Division II school that is picked to finish last in one of its conference’s divisions.

One thing made clear last night, and Pearl acknowledged as such, is that with Wayne Chism starting at the 4 and Tyler Smith starting at the 3, both were playing out of position.  When two of your most productive returning players and starters are playing out of position, and you combine them with a group of freshmen who’ve never played, you have problems.

Individually, some good things happened last night.  Bobby Maze had a solid outing at the point.  Scotty Hopson was productive at the 2, and Emmanuel Negedu gave the team a spark off the bench with 11 points and six rebounds.  And Tatum returned playing 15 minutes and scoring 8 points also off the bench.

I still believe that as the season plays out Tennessee’s most productive starting five will eventually be Wayne Chism at center, Tyler Smith at the No. 4 position, Tatum and Hopson on the wings and Maze at the point.  Others will emerge in key reserve roles, particularly freshmen Renaldo Woolridge and Negedu.

The pieces are there for Tennessee to have a very good basketball team this year.  It may just take a little longer to put them together than we thought.

Tennessee will play the first of two exhibition contests tonight against the University of Indianapolis Greyhounds.  The game is basically a favor extended from UT head coach Bruce Pearl to UIndy head coach Stan Gouard, who was a star player for Pearl at Southern Indiana and played on Pearl’s 1995 Division II national championship team.

The Hounds of the Division II Great Lakes Valley Conference are picked to finish seventh in the seven-team Eastern Division of that conference this year, so this should not be much of a test.

Considering the fact that the Vols have been down three players so far this preseason, the best they might could hope for in this game is that no one else gets hurt.

This game will be an opportunity for five Vol newcomers…Scotty Hopson, Renaldo Woolridge, Bobby Maze, Philip Jurick, and Emmanuel Negedu to take the floor of Thompson-Boling arena for the first time under game conditions.  A sixth newcomer, freshman point guard Daniel West, remains sidelined indefinitely with an eligibility issue.

Perhaps the best thing about tonight’s contest is that it means the first real game that counts – Nov. 15th against UT-Chattanooga - is only 12 days away.

The Vols are ranked 14th in the preseason AP Poll released today.  North Carolina is ranked No. 1.  Florida is the only other SEC team ranked in the AP Top 25 at No. 19.

Tennessee was ranked No. 13 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll announced Thursday.

J.P. Prince

The announcement late today that Tennessee junior wing J.P. Prince will miss the first three to five weeks of the season leaves the lineup and rotation for the 13th-ranked Vols in disarray with little more than two weeks before the season begins Nov. 15 against UT-Chattanooga.

Already this preseason, the Vols have lost redshirt freshman wing player Cameron Tatum who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery and freshman point guard Daniel West to an eligibility issue.

Now with Prince’s injury, the Vols may be down three of their 13 scholarship players when the season begins, and three players who figured prominently in the rotation this season.

Tatum was a leading candidate to start the season at one of the wing positions, and West was expected to backup junior college transfer Bobby Maze at the point.  With the injury to Tatum, Prince was considered a leading candidate to start the season at a wing and was expected to fill key minutes at the point in relief of Maze with West out.

Head coach Bruce Pearl will now have to reshuffle his playing deck and has indicated that he may now go with Brian Williams at center, with Wayne Chism moving to power forward and Tyler Smith moving to small forward.

It’s never as important in Pearl’s system who starts as to who’s available and in what roles.  Clearly, the Vols will be handicapped to begin the season with Prince out, Tatum recovering from surgery, and West out indefinitely.

But the biggest blow comes with the news of Prince’s injury.  While one could question Prince’s  effectiveness filling the role of backup point guard, with he and West out indefinitely, the Vols have no other option at the point than Maze and no depth at the position.

The other damaging domino effect of Prince’s injury is the move of Smith from his natural power forward position to small forward.  A starting frontcourt of Williams, Chism and Smith will limit Tennessee offensively, particularly from the perimeter where Chism and Smith are inconsistent outside scorers.

Tennessee will have enough talent and depth to weather the early part of the schedule without Tatum, Prince and West, but the Old Spice Classic field, with three teams ranked in the preseason top 25 coaches poll, will likely expose Tennessee’s lack of depth at point guard and shaky outside shooting.

The Vols can simply ill afford for Maze to go down now.  They desperately need West’s eligibility to be cleared up so that he can return, and they will need a healthy Tatum.  Pearl has indicated that Tatum may be available for limited action in the first exhibition game next week against Indianapolis.  That would be welcome news.

A season that was to begin with such promise is now very much in question.  Tennessee needs answers, and Pearl will have to find them.

Tennessee is ranked 13th in the preseason ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ poll released today.

Some additional analysis of the poll follows…

• The Vols are currently scheduled to play five of the preseason Top 25 this season:  Gonzaga, Memphis, Marquette, Florida and Kansas.
• The Vols could potentially play two additional teams in the poll – Michigan State and Georgetown – in the Old Spice Classic in Orlando in November.
• The Old Spice Classic features four teams ranked in the poll – Michigan State, Gonzaga, Georgetown and Tennessee.
• Only two SEC teams are ranked in the preseason Top 25 – Tennessee and Florida (19th).  Three other SEC teams received votes…LSU (19 votes), Kentucky (7 votes) and Vanderbilt (7 votes).
• Interesting that Alabama was picked by SEC media in its preseason poll to win the SEC West, yet LSU receives the most votes of any SEC West team in the coaches poll.  Alabama did not receive a vote by the coaches.
• By the way, the top five in the poll went as follows…(1) North Carolina, (2) Connecticut, (3) Louisville, (4) UCLA and (5) Duke.

The AP will release its preseason top 25 poll tomorrow.

Dale Ellis

The third member of my Vol All-Century Team starting five is Dale Ellis.  Ellis joins Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld in my starting five.  Ellis’ four-year career as a Vol spans the years 1979-83.

Ellis was a two-time first team All-American, and was the SEC Player of the Year in 1982 and 1983.  He was also a three-time first team All-SEC selection in 1981-83.

The Marietta, Ga. native finished his four-year career at Tennessee with more than 2,000 career points and ranks sixth on the all-time scoring list.

The 6-7 Ellis was primarily a low-post scorer and defender at Tennessee.  Undersized physically compared to many of his SEC peers, Ellis confounded many an SEC coach with his lightning-quick low-post moves and his soft turnaround jumper.  For those of us old enough to remember, who can ever forget those epic NCAA tournament confrontations in 1981 and 1982 against 7-4 Ralph Sampson and Virginia.  Ellis went toe-to-toe with Sampson in those contests, despite giving up nine inches in height.

So effective was Ellis as a scorer down low, he holds the all-time Tennessee single season record for field goal percentage (.654) and career field goal percentage (.595.)

In addition to his individual honors, Ellis was also a member of four NCAA tournament teams during his career at Tennessee under coach Don DeVoe, and was a member of the 1982 SEC Co-Champions.

Another great, great player for Tennessee and a deserving member of the Vol All-Century team starting five.

I will announce the fourth member of my Vol All-Century team starting five next week.

Scotty Hopson

One of the most heralded incoming freshmen to enter the SEC in recent years, Scotty Hopson received high praise from head coach Bruce Pearl during today’s SEC Media Days in Birmingham.

“We’re very fortunute to have him,” Pearl said, of the McDonald’s high school All-American and Associated Press Kentucky High School Player of the Year. “He’s a great kid. He is a very hard worker.  He’s very motivated.  Offensively, he belongs at this level. He can play.  He can shoot it.  He can drive it.  He can score it.  He has a high basketball IQ,” Pearl said.

“Defensively, he’s got to be constantly reminded that that’s 50 percent of the game,” Pearl added.

The 6-7, 185-pound Hopson from Hopkinsville, Ky is expected to start at a wing for Tennessee this season.

There has been much talk this basketball offseason about the fact that the three-point line, which debuted in college basketball 20 years ago, will be moved back a foot this season to 20 feet and nine inches, from 19 feet and nine inches.

Coach Bruce Pearl has indicated that he doesn’t think the extension of the three point line will have the desired effect of opening up the inside game.  Pearl instead believes more teams will pack their defenses in to protect the inside and play more zone because the line is farther back.

“I don’t know if it’s going to open the lane up more,” Pearl added. “I think this will make zone defenses much more effective. The matchup zone will make a comeback. Teams that play a lot of zone should be real happy with this,” Pearl told ESPN.com last May.

The Vols led the SEC in made three-point field goals last season with 312.  Pearl said today at the SEC Media Days that the line moving a foot farther out, won’t affect his offensive strategy.

“As long as that thing (3-point line) is worth one more than two, we’re going to keep shooting it,” Pearl said.

Ernie Grunfeld

Arguably Tennessee’s first modern-day superstar in men’s basketball, Ernie Grunfeld’s accomplishments and reputation are legendary among Vol faithful.

Grunfeld was a two-time first team All-American and was first-team All-SEC all four years during his career at Tennessee.  When he completed his storied career with the Vols in 1977, he did so as the school’s all-time career scoring leader with 2,249 points, a record that would stand until Allan Houston eclipsed the career point total in 1993.

Along with teammate Bernard King, Grunfeld led Tennessee to the 1977 SEC Championship with a 16-2 league record back in the day when the 10-team league played a grueling round-robin SEC schedule. He was the SEC Player of the Year in 1977, along with King. 

His UT career scoring average of 22.3 points per game is second only to King.

And he became UT’s first Olympian in 1976, when the USA won the gold medal in basketball in Montreal.

But there was so much more to Grunfeld than just the statistical accolades.  Grunfeld, in my opinion, was and still is the most charismatic baskeball player to ever wear the orange. 

Arriving one year at Tennessee before Bernard King, Grunfeld became an instant superstar in his first year as a Vol.  Yet, rather than bemoaning the loss of some of the spotlight with the arrival of King the next season, Grunfeld embraced King, and for the next three years they formed the “Ernie and Bernie Show,” and became the most famous duo in all of UT sports history.  The three years that they played together at Stokely Athletics Center created the most electrifying atmosphere in college basketball.

I can remember vividly many times Grunfeld racing back down the floor on defense with his right arm raised high in the air with a clenched fist after making a great play or basket. UT fans loved it and him for his unbridled enthusiasm and emotion. He loved the Vols, and the Vols loved him.

Ernie was a great, great player, make no mistake.  But he was also so much more.