Mocs hoops
And the Mocs delivered.
Matt McCall’s balanced and deep bunch of fighters and believers grabbed the program’s first NCAA ticket since 2009 with an impressive and gutty 73-67 win over ETSU. It was UTC’s third win over the talented collection of transfers at ETSU. (And we’re pretty sure we’re the first one to ever say this, but it’s really tough to beat the same team three times in a year.)
So UTC continues to roll. And not just the basketball teams, each of who are headed to their big dances. It’s high cotton for the Mocs athletic department across the board, considering where football is, and high hopes in softball and moving into spring sports with momentum in tennis and golf, too.
But that collective back-patting can wait for another day. Today should be about the Mocs basketball accomplishments.
They lead the nation with 29 wins. They have three legit road wins over Illinois, Dayton and Georgia. They have an RPI of 59. UTC is a 14 seed in the most recent Joe Lunardi bracket projections against Miami.
It’s been an amazingly impressive regular season that has been punctuated with a Southern Conference tournament title. Kudos to all involved, be McCall and his staff for coming in and adapting exquisitely to the existing personnel. Kudos to the experience bunch of players for embracing another new chapter – for four-year players in the program this is the third staff changeover during their careers – and excelling.
This very easily could have been a talented but disconnected group, especially after preseason SoCon player of the year candidate Casey Jones went down for the season with an ankle injury in late December.
In some ways the success of the last three monist may have been cemented in McCall’s first three months on the job.
Look at the roster and the stats and know that this bunch was willing to share all of it. The ball, the numbers, the responsibility and the credit.
Now, because of that sacrifice, they will get to share in the experience of being a champion and going to NCAA tournament.
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Bowling Green’s Travis Greene (8) tries to get around Tennessee’s Jalen Reeves-Maybin (21). The Tennessee Volunteers hosted the Bowling Green Falcons at Nissan Stadium in Nashville September 5, 2015.UT starts spring practice
Downtown Patrick Brown has done a stellar job of prepping the TFP readers on the looming spring football practice in K-Town.
That of course is to be expected from a pro’s pro like Downtown.
Here are three areas that the 5-at-10 will be following (and he’s written about each in different versions, and we concur across the board on the importance of these):
Passing game improvements. This has been a big talking point in Downtown’s writing, even getting some discussion from OC Mike DeBord in today’s paper. The Vols offense has the chance to be truly special with all the pieces and packages it returns. The running game figures to be dynamic and consistent, and that will help alleviate the pressure on Josh Dobbs and the passing people. But if Dobbs and Co. can’t loosen defenses on a consistent basis, well, it will severely tax the ground group.
Safety. It’s the one position that does not have a wealth of returning players with a wealth of experience. That doesn’t mean there’s not talent there – no there’s a lot of talent on this roster because of the recruiting job Jones and Co. have done in the last three cycles.
Handling the expectations. This will be a season-long theme of course, but the season started in a lot of ways Monday. So that theme started along with it.
Thoughts?
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FILE – In this Jan. 25, 1981, Oakland Raiders quarterback Jim Plunkett (16) throws during NFL football’s Super Bowl XV in New Orleans against the Philadelphia Eagles. The first wild-card team to win the Super Bowl, the Raiders spent most of the year as a mistake-prone offensive mess. Oakland turned it over 44 times and finished 16th in total yards. Plunkett completed just 51 percent of his passes and had 16 interceptions to go with 18 touchdown passes. (AP Photo/File) Eagles purging; Titans addition
The Philadelphia Eagles are jettisoning many of the big-name acquisitions former coach Chip Kelly brought in recently.
On the cusp of the 2016 season’s official start day Wednesday, the Eagles have dealt linebacker Kiko Alonso and cornerback Byron Maxwell to Miami as well as dealing DeMarco Murray. The deals will become official Wednesday.
Philadelphia will get draft pick compensation from the Titans, who have not had a running back rush for 100 yards since December 2013 when Chris Johnson did it. The Titans have three picks in the top 64 selections in the upcoming draft and have a giant void at running back.
It’s also the first big move by GM Jon Robinson, who was hired in January. It will be interesting to see what kind of draft compensation Robinson parted with, but if Murray is healthy and even close to his 2014 form when he rushed for 1,845 yards and 13 TDs, it fills a monster need for a team with a plethora of big holes to fill.
Not sure how often we have been able to say this about the Titans, who are 5-27 the last two years, but unless the gave up a first- or second-round pick, it looks like this is a pretty doggone good deal for a team looking to find an identity.
So add Murray, who’s 28 and has averaged 4.6 yards per carry for his career, to an offense that likely will also add the top offensive lineman in the draft in Laremy Tunsil with the No. 1 overall pick and it looks like a team ready to run the football. (Side note: We’d love for the Titans to roll the dice with the top overall pick and give Dick LeBeau the difference-making safety in Jalen Ramsey, whom LeBeau could make into Troy Polamulo 2.0.)
As for the Eagles, Murray and Maxwell were key free agent acquisitions for Kelly who flopped in Philly. And Alonso was traded to the Eagles from Buffalo for fan-favorite Lesean McCoy before last year.
Other than burning every visor with the Eagles logo on it, it’s hard to image a stronger effort to disassociate the organization from Kelly’s three years there.
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Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning struggles to speak during his retirement announcement at team headquarters Monday, March 7, 2016, in Englewood, Colo. Manning, who has been in the NFL for the past 18 years, is retiring after winning five MVP trophies and two Super Bowl championships, the most recent last month against the Carolina Panthers. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)This and that
– If some teams were wondering about free-agent-to-be quarterback Brock Osweiler’s decision making considering he has limited starts under his belt, this speaks well of his abilities to handle the moment in a hostile environment. This TMZ video has Osweiler in a near altercation at 2 a.m. over the weekend outside of an Arizona pizza joint. Osweiler gets pushed pretty hard in the back and leads his group away from the fracas as opposed into a potential street brawl. Plus, he gets bonus points for not dropping the pizza. (Which certainly does not look like a Papa John’s, so that will be another change in tradition if Osweiler stays with Denver.)
– For those interested, here’s our A2 column on the disaster that was the Hamilton County school board last night.
– The Peyton speech and send off were truly fitting, as TFP ace columnist Mark Wiedmer expertly discussed in today’s paper. But proving that there’s not a single thing on our planet this side of a warm, buttered Cracker Barrel biscuit that gets 100-percent approval, here’s DeAngelo Williams going nuts on Twitter about Peyton being terrible in 2015.
– Golden State set a new record last night because, well, they’re Golden State. They now have won the most consecutive home games (45) and have the best start to a season through 62 games at 56-6. Steph Curry made his 300th 3 of the season in his 41-point effort last night. No player in the history of the league has made 300 3s in a season, and Curry has 20 more games to add to that total. And considering that since the All-Star break, Curry is averaging almost 36 points a game in a shade under 35 minutes while shooting a mind-numbing 69.7 percent from the field (yes, 69.7 percent), who knows how many 3s he’ll finish with this year. Amazing.
– We are not even a third of the way into the third month of the year, and we have a contender for sports moment of the year.Here’s the celebration after Rickie Fowler hit a hole-in-one with a borrowed club in sneakers to win $1 million for Ernie Els’ charity that fights Autism. Outstanding.
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Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly passed for 302 yards and four touchdowns in the Rebels’ 48-20 rout of Oklahoma State in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, and he also had 10 carries for 73 yards.Today’s question
As we pondering the excellence that was Peyton Manning’s career, what would be the Rushmore of moments in his Hall of Fame run?
Also, if you need another avenue to think, type and discuss, today is March 8, the 39th birthday of James Van Der Beek, who gained the most fame as Dawson from “Dawson’s Creek” back in the day.
He also played Jonathan Moxon, the reserve quarterback who comes in to save the day in “Varsity Blues” and, all things considered, looks somewhat similar physically to Peyton in that role. (His famous “I do not want your life” is the sports movie equivalent to “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” from Dirty Dancing.)
As we debate Peyton’s place on the Rushmore of all-time real quarterbacks, who’s on the Rushmore of all-time TV/movie quarterbacks? (Yes, seems like Paul Crewe will be a frontrunner here.)
Go, and remember the mailbag.