University of Tennessee Athletics
5 Quick Things: Nov. 1
November 01, 2016 | Men's Basketball
The Tennessee basketball team is just two days away from its lone exhibition contest, a 7 p.m. ET tip against Slippery Rock at Thompson-Boling Arena on Thursday night. Here are five things you should know about the Vols with the regular season now within reach:
1 | The Rock
Tennessee's exhibition opponent Thursday, Slippery Rock University, is a public, Division II school located in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, approximately 50 miles north of Pittsburgh. The Tennessee and Slippery Rock programs do share one historic hardwood connection in former coach Cliff Wettig. From 1973-75, Wettig guided Slippery Rock to a 33-17 record as that program's head coach. He was then hired as an assistant at Tennessee under the legendary Ray Mears. When illness forced Mears to sit out the 1977-78 season, Wettig took over as the Vols' acting head coach. Vol Network basketball analyst Bert Bertelkamp played for Wettig that year. "Coach Wettig was a good man who really cared about us," Bertelkamp said. "He was also a tough competitor who demanded a lot out of his players."
2 | Tough Scout
Slippery Rock has been a difficult opponent to scout, as the program does not recruit freshmen. Head coach Kevin Reynolds builds primarily from the junior-college ranks, and 10 of the team's 12 players are in their first year with the program. The roster features no freshmen and only one sophomore. Five members of this year's team were teammates last season at Marshalltown (Iowa) Community College. SRU's lone returning players are senior guards Naquil Jones (6.2 ppg) and Jordan Marrow (3.4 ppg). Thursday's contest is the first of two exhibition games for Slippery Rock this preseason; the team plays at Central Michigan on Saturday. "We're playing against a team that we don't know a lot about, which is sometimes good," Vols head coach Rick Barnes said. "That means our guys are going to have to really be on edge and react to whatever."
3 | Two-And-A-Half Minutes
With greater depth from top to bottom, head coach Rick Barnes has begun challenging his Vols to play with maximum effort for two-and-a-half minute shifts during game action. The concept requires not only mental and physical tenacity, but also a teamwide trust that after playing to exhaustion, the next man can come in and maintain the intensity and production. Said Barnes:
"I think probably the biggest takeaway (from Saturday's scrimmage), if you ask these guys, is understanding how hard it is to play two-and-a-half minutes as hard as you can play, knowing that if you do that, there's somebody waiting to come in and try to keep it going. I think that's probably (the challenge) for the majority of the younger guys--understanding just how hard it is to play two-and-a-half minutes really hard."
4 | First Five
Head coach Rick Barnes said on Tuesday that he was far from decided on what his first five might look like for Thursday's exhibition against Slippery Rock. Speaking to the media, Barnes reiterated his lack of concern towards settling on a consistent starting lineup. Barnes took a similar approach last season, sending out 10 different starting five combinations over the course of the season.
"I want our guys to realize it doesn't matter who starts, and as you guys know it's probably more important to them than it is to us as a coaching staff," Barnes said. "I want guys to be comfortable but I also want them to be on edge. I don't want them to take any minute for granted. We could be a team that week-to-week, game-to-game could be a different starting lineup based on consistency."
5 | In The Weight Room
Much like the transformation he oversaw in forward Admiral Schofield last season, strength and conditioning coach Garrett Medenwald has worked closely to reshape the physique of freshman forward Grant Williams. Medenwald reports that since Williams enrolled in July he has lost 25 pounds.
"With Grant, we've focused his conditioning on high-paced, intense, basketball-specific movement patterns," Medenwald said. "We've emphasized lunges, leaps, shuffle patterns, jumps, duck-ins, and combinations of them all. Those patterns translate directly to the game. He's come a long way in his mental conditioning as well, learning to get outside of his comfort zone in his training and also committing himself to making lifestyle changes off the court as it relates to his nutrition and recovery."
