Vols want to force fast tempo

KNOXVILLE -- Fast or slow, full court or half court, 100 points or 50 points.

None of that should matter in Tennessee's next two men's basketball games, tonight in Nashville against Middle Tennessee State and at home Tuesday night against Wyoming.

Coach Bruce Pearl appreciates that his ninth-ranked Volunteers (6-1) have learned to win slower-paced games. But starting tonight against the Blue Raiders (3-5), he'd like to see them force their brand of up-tempo basketball on the opposition.

"A lot of times what you see against teams at that high mid-major level that are maybe a little undersized is that they're able to control tempo a little bit," Pearl said. "They're a little bit smaller, quicker, and they can obviously reduce the number of possessions during the course of the game."

Pearl, given the size and skill on his roster, would like to see as many possessions as possible in most games.

The Vols lead the Southeastern Conference in scoring, shooting from the field and 3-point range, but several opponents have successfully slowed the tempo. Packed-in zone defenses and deliberate, half-court offensive sets have kept several games from Pearl's preferred "controlled chaos" pace.

"It's not been consistently as up as I'd like," he said.

And the Vols have heard that message loud and clear.

"We have enough talent to play any kind of basketball and win games, but we all came here to play Tennessee basketball," forward Tyler Smith said.

Point guard Bobby Maze, a fellow senior, gave a common definition of Tennessee basketball.

"Fast on both ends of the floor, forcing turnovers on defense and getting out for transition buckets," Maze said. "Most teams want to slow us down because they know we're at our best when we're playing fast."

Pearl reluctantly pulled back the reins last season when it became apparent that UT's inexperienced backcourt wasn't ready to flourish in the fast-paced game.

Better backcourt experience and an offseason of speed training were supposed to fix that, and at times that's been the case. But DePaul, Purdue and even Austin Peay and East Tennessee State to an extent still hunkered down enough to dictate their preferred pace.

"That's going to happen sometimes in this game, and every game presents different challenges, but we need to be better at making people play the way we want to play," Maze said.

UT can't rely on its home fans to help that hysteria away from Thompson-Boling Arena, though. Road and neutral-site environments often slowed the Vols last season, and Pearl hopes to see his team better showcase Tennessee basketball away from Knoxville.

The Sommet Center, home of tonight's Sun Belt Classic doubleheader -- Vanderbilt and Western Kentucky will play the nightcap -- is potentially a friendly neutral site to start doing that.

"This is obviously acting as a home game for Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee," Pearl said. "It's their game, their announcers, and they'll do everything they can to make that feel as homelike as they can. That's a good thing for us, to get away.

"It's a neutral site, but I hope there's nothing neutral about it. I'm hoping that the Big Orange shows up in a big, big way."

Other contacts for Wes Rucker are www.twitter.com/wesrucker and www.facebook.com/tfpvolsbeat.