Vols Roll Over Vanderbilt

I know Vanderbilt is a good basketball team, but I just haven't seen them play like it yet. For the second straight year, the Vols owned the Commodores in Thompson-Boling Arena and blew out an over-matched Vandy squad.

With the exception of the opening moments of the game, Bruce Pearl had to pleased with the development of last night's ballgame. First, A.J. Ogilvy picked up early fouls and was a non-factor for most of the game. Second, the Vols were able to get out and run because the Commodores could not withstand Tennessee's on the ball pressure and quickness in the passing lanes. Tennessee was finding three-pointers in transition and getting big buckets from unlikely sources like Jordan Howell, Ryan Childress and especially Wayne Chism.

The star of the night was Chism who played with energy on the boards, blocked shots and scored inside and outside. He finished with 18 points and 18 rebounds on the evening.

As the Vols prepare for the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday afternoon, I'm going to throw a little rain on the orange parade. This Tennessee team has a Final Four swagger about it, but also has some troubling flaws that must be addressed.

1) Where is Chris Lofton? Obviously, Lofton is the first item on the Tennessee scouting report and he gets more attention from opposing defenses than anyone else on the floor. He is listed at 6'2, but he looks 6'0 at best and is usually covered by someone with several inches on him. With teams guarding Lofton so tightly, other Vols like JuJuan Smith and Tyler Smith are stepping up their scoring. There are giant holes in the opposing defense when teams refuse to get to helpside away from Lofton or refuse to help off of him when others penetrate.

All that being said, Lofton needs to be a bigger focus of the offense and needs to get his offensive game going. The two troubling things about Lofton right now are how rarely he is getting good looks and how shaky he looks trying to knock those few looks down. Last year, he was automatic when open and found a way to score even when he was being blanketed. Maybe he does not need to do the latter with this year's team, but he is missing open looks and free throws (he isn't getting to the line nearly as often either). He just does not look like the same guy he was a year ago.

When it gets into March, the Vols are going to need a guy to knock down shots against the best defenses in the country. Is that guy going to be Jordan Howell? J.P. Prince? JuJuan Smith? I like these guys, but I don't trust them to consistently hit the big shot like I do Lofton. Or did Lofton. We need Lofton to get going if we are going to make a March run.

2) Shot Selection - Bruce Pearl's team looks great in transition, but somewhat shaky in the halfcourt. The opening moments of the Vanderbilt game included a plethora of forced and awkward shots, many with 20+ seconds still left on the shot clock. I'm afraid with a deeper rotation of guys who have the ability to score, there is a certain element of "I'm going to get mine" at times for the Vols. Returning to last year's team, they could execute in the half court with much more consistency than this team. Too often, these Vols are content to run their flex baseline screens for 20 seconds, then see if someone can make a move to the basket or hit a contested three. In the second half last night, Pearl turned to the ball screen as his offensive weapon of choice and it worked well.

Here is the thing - transition and passing lane turnovers are great, but against a good team will be tough to come by. Do you see UNC or Kansas throwing us the ball like Vanderbilt did last night?

3) Post Defense - There is depth on the block with Chism, Childress and Williams, but they are all flawed defenders. Chism is the best of the bunch, but he gambles too much and picks up cheap fouls too often. Childress is too slow and Williams is too green. Getting Duke Crews back will help, but he is only 6'7 down there. What happens when the Vols meet a good post scorer? We got an idea about that last night with A.J. Ogilvy. While the early foul trouble hurt him, he was flat out working us over inside in the early part of the second half. I worry about our ability to defend a Roy Hibbert or Tyler Hansbrough down the road.

In the big scheme of things, those are all minor problems for a team with just one loss (to an excellent Texas team). As happy as I am with the current Vols squad, they still don't have a win that absolutely impresses me. Vanderbilt is close, Gonzaga and Xavier were nice and Ole Miss seems better all the time. Each of those teams, however, ought to lose to Tennessee. While it is important to beat teams you should beat, I'm anxious to see the Vols beat someone they should not.

That test is coming on February 23rd against the Memphis Tigers. We will get a much better idea if these Vols are another Sweet Sixteen team or a Final Four team when they travel to FedEx Forum in a little over a month.

Can you believe we are talking about the Final Four and Tennessee basketball?