One more reason it's a good year to like orange

Sporting News, The, Jan 25, 1999 by Mike DeCourcy

After 40 minutes of basketball that might best be described as felonious, a Tennessee player copped to the team's greatest crime. "Sometimes, we play soft," senior guard Brandon Wharton said. "We don't play tough all the time. That's hurt."

Well, there you have it.

It is why Tennessee has fallen from a preseason top 10 ranking (Associated Press; 14th in TSN poll) to out of the Top 25. It is how a team that includes three McDonald's All-Americans could lose four of its first dozen games.

Case closed.

Or is it?

Last week, signs indicated the Vols had put their heinous past behind them and ready to start beating some folks in Southeastern Conference. They into Kentucky and did terrible things to the big lineup Wildcats fans had fallen for too quickly, dragging UK into a brutal affair reminiscent of the Big East's slugfests in the early '90's and that made Vols fans wonder if Kevin O'Neill were still in charge. And Tennessee won, 47-46, its first victory at Rupp Arena in two decades.

This was more than an upset, more than a conference opponent making good use of local knowledge. This was a game that suggested Tennessee still was capable of approaching the glorious predictions made on its behalf before the season.

It was how UT won that was most promising. The Vols demonstrated physical toughness by grinding through every possession without relenting on offense or defense and suggested a surprising degree of mental strength by refusing to yield when Kentucky was fortunate enough to move in front.

"There was a little doubt," said sophomore point guard Tony Harris, not yet born the last time the Vols won in Lexington. "Not about how good we can be, but when was everybody going to pick it up. We had some talks, and we told the senior class, `How much does this season mean to you?'"

Harris told his teammates in the locker room before the game, "If we going to do it, we're going to do it defensively." And so they did, digging themselves in front of the Wildcats in a manner that went well beyond their most common defensive strategy this season, which was to ask big men C.J. Black, Charles Hathaway and Isiah Victor to clean up an abundance of perimeter errors.

The Vols' early season misadventures included a loss at Miami (Ohio), an embarrassing defeat against a rebuilding St. Joseph's team and utter humiliation in the SEC opener at Auburn, which ended as a 28-point Tigers victory.

"I thought we we're ready to play," Wharton said, "but it was like we were missing something."

The Vols were missing shots against Kentucky, precisely 69.6 percent of those they attempted, but not much else. They dominated on the boards, with freshman wing Vincent Yarbrough getting 12. "If one person made a difference, I would have to say it was Vincent," coach Jerry Green said. The Wildcats' point total was their lowest since 1987.

At least as surprising as the Tennessee win was the Vols' insistence it did not mark a mining point in their season. That came the game before, Harris said, in a comfortable victory at home against South Carolina--one of the SEC's poorest teams.

"South Carolina is in a slump, but they can mm it up at any time," Harris said, "so we took that (win) as a monumental thing.

"I think we are coming around. They kind of put us up a little high as far as the rankings. We're just trying not to think about that. We're trying to find ourselves right now."

This has begun with Harris, the dynamically quick sophomore point guard who is both empowered and crippled by his tremendous offensive skills. He has occasionally been too quick to shoot, a habit left over from when he was a one-man show winning a Tennessee state title as a junior. It comes not from selfishness but from the Vols' frequent lapses into passivity and indecision.

Harris has been more insistent about initiating the offense in recent weeks. He still leads the Vols in shot attempts, but that might correct itself if such players as Black and Victor did a better job making themselves targets inside.

Freshman forward Vincent Yarbrough began the season too eager to shoot and now is almost too reluctant, but when he figures it out, there is a brilliant scorer screaming to escape from a body perfectly built for basketball.

Wharton has a nice touch that made him a 42.9 percent 3-point shooter last season, but shooting too often on the move dropped him to 32.8 this season. He did make two of the biggest 3s in the UK game, including the game-winner with just over a minute left.

Green's North Carolina-style offensive scheme has been a problem, with too much emphasis on lateral motion and not enough on attacking the goal with drives and post isolations. Yarbrough and Hams would be devastating in a drive-and-kick approach, and Wharton is most comfortable when he is able to catch the ball coming directly toward him and elevate for a shot without having to first square his body to the rim. That was exactly how the ball came to him as he launched the shot that ended a two-decade drought.

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