Vols not delving into Pac-12 basketball connections
College coaches will use every outlet possible to scout an opponent, especially when given extra time.
Yet they also will look to avoid “chasing ghosts,” where focusing on past connections to a foe can overshadow the here and now of the challenge.
Tennessee has some familiarity with Oregon State, which is Friday afternoon’s opening draw for the Volunteers in a 2021 NCAA basketball tournament that is being conducted entirely in Indiana. Vols assistant coach Kim English came to Knoxville two years ago after spending two seasons at Colorado, while redshirt junior guard Victor Bailey Jr. is in his first season of Southeastern Conference competition after beginning his career at Oregon.
The Midwest Region’s sixth-seeded Vols (18-8) spent some of this season as a top-10 team and received an at-large bid into the 68-team field, while the 11th-seeded Beavers (17-12) earned their spot by winning last weekend’s Pac-12 Conference tournament.
“With Kim and VJ, they certainly know about them, even though Oregon State has pretty much a different team,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “Like every team that pops up, our coaches start working on those opponents for the first weekend, and our players are doing the same thing. They will give me some film or whatever they can come up with for me to look at.
“Obviously, you can get that pretty quick now, but from what I understand, they are a different team in terms of personnel.”
Tennessee announced late Tuesday afternoon that it had cleared all COVID-testing protocols for the NCAA tournament and practiced Tuesday evening in Indianapolis.
The winner of the Tennessee-Oregon State game, which has a 4:30 tip on TNT, will face the winner of fourth-seeded Oklahoma State (20-8) and 13th-seeded Liberty (23-5) in the second round. A Tennessee-Oklahoma State pairing
has the potential to showcase three first-round selections in June’s NBA draft — OSU’s Cade Cunningham and UT’s Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer — should they decide to leave after their freshmen seasons.
Oregon actually got swept by Oregon State two seasons ago, with Bailey scoring 11 points in a 77-72 home loss to the Beavers and five points in a 72-57 loss in Corvallis. The Ducks eventually reeled off 10 consecutive wins, which included the Pac-12 tourney title and a pair of triumphs in NCAA play, before a 53-49 loss in the Sweet 16 to eventual national champion Virginia.
Colorado split with Oregon State two seasons ago with English, which included a Buffaloes win in the Pac-12 tournament.
The Beavers are led by 6-foot-5 senior guard Ethan Thompson (15.3 points per game) and 6-3 sophomore guard Jarod Lucas (12.9). The two have combined on 300 3-point attempts.
Of course, Tennessee’s postseason fate likely will be more about how the Vols perform compared to who they face. The Vols ended the regular season and opened last weekend’s SEC tournament with wins over Florida, the seventh seed in the South Regional, and then built a 15-point lead on Alabama, the second seed in the East Regional, before running out of steam in an eventual 73-68 loss.
“In the last couple weeks, I’ve just seen an attention to detail with our scouting reports,” Barnes said of the desired late-season consistency that was absent in February. “Sometimes it takes you longer to get to that point where we’ve tried to just get guys to hone in on exactly what you’re trying to do. More importantly, I think it’s just the players talking among themselves.
“The chemistry is good, and I just think it has gone to a different level. I think they are really locked in to each other.”