Gritty Wins Are Still Wins
Image: University of Tennessee Athletics
By Clayton Kilgore
Oftentimes, “gritty” can be misinterpreted as “ugly” or “bad”. Let me be the first to say: That’s baloney. There’s no such thing as a bad win in the SEC right now, no matter how wretched, and only severe idiots would disagree.
The Vols just added to the growing body count tonight with a GRITTY 85-81 win over Missouri. That’s a damn good basketball team and Tennessee weathered the storm in the first half then outplayed and outlasted late in the game. They were down 6 going into halftime and bounced back - I’ll gladly that over #15 at home.
It feels like business was taken care of, but there’s always room for improvement, right? Besides, what else is there to do as fans but talk about it, complain a little bit, and dissect?
Zeigler had a double-double, logging a season-high 21 points and 10 rebounds. He’s an integral part of the success we’ve had so far and a vital component looking ahead to March. I love Zakai Zeigler, but I think I’m ready to say it: He overdribbles at times.
Maybe this isn’t his fault and maybe that’s what he’s being asked to do, but there are possessions where I feel like there isn’t a plan so he just dribbles in circles for 20-25 seconds, nothing materializes, then we throw up a contested, off-balance 30-footer.
Kinda reminds me of Michael Scott popping off in the warehouse.
Our in-bound plays make me have acid reflux.
Once again, I love Zeigler and would take him to dinner if he wanted, but is there no one else that can inbound the ball?
Having the team’s best ball handler throwing it in feels weird and counterproductive, especially when you consider he’s also the shortest guy on the roster. It’s hard to see over those tall guys sometimes! Wouldn’t he be better deployed getting open by darting between defenders like a Rattata?
They struggled late in the game and burnt two timeouts trying to get the ball in and that simply has to get better. I could feel my skin tingling and overheating as I started to combust watching us flirt with five second call after five second call under a minute to play. Can you imagine that next month with the season on the line?
Felix Okpara had himself another nice game (12 points/6 rebounds). Methinks he is a suitable big, and that’s a good feeling. He’s got some beef about him, he’s coming into his own offensively, has some nifty post moves, and is a fierce rim protector. He goes balls out trying to block every shot possible, and I love his exertion. He’s our first proper center in what feels like forever (sorry, Uros).
This alley-oop was disgusting:
Gonna need more from Dubar. I hope he resets and finds/decides to flip a switch.
Overall, this was a good team effort we can be proud of. Lanier, Gainey, and Milicic were solid and there were five Vols with double digit points, hard to hate that. It ain’t always gonna be sexy but this team’s a 1 seed if we can keep chipping away and getting better.
We’re on to Oklahoma.