Tennessee point guard Jordan Bone reacts during the Vols’ 87-81 overtime loss to Kansas in the NIT Season Tip-Off championship game on Nov. 22 in New York. Bone has averaged 14 points and five assists per game during the Vols’ 5-1 start this season.KNOXVILLE – With all five starters back from last season’s 26-win Tennessee men’s basketball team, it might seem like opponents should know what to expect when they face the Volunteers.
And on the surface, they’d probably guess correctly. A tough, physical style of play led by forwards Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams – both solid, chiseled, physical specimens – would suggest the Vols are the same team they were a year ago.
But that doesn’t take into account personal improvement from the players in other ways.
That doesn’t take into account Jordan Bone.
The junior point guard’s obvious growth in skill at the position has been key in the sixth-ranked Vols’ 5-1 start as they head into today’s home game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (4-3). Tipoff is at noon at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Bone, who averaged 7.3 points per game during his first two college seasons, has nearly doubled his scoring average (14.0) this season while thriving as the team’s primary ball-handler, having averaged five assists per game with four games of at least five assists. He’s taking care of the ball, too, having committed only 11 turnovers.
He had two of those in the first 6:49 of Wednesday’s 95-67 home win against Eastern Kentucky, but he had no such miscues the rest of the way, finishing with 14 points and seven assists as the Colonels struggled to adjust.
“It took a couple of minutes to realize that at his speed, they couldn’t press him,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said Friday. “He needs to understand that when we tell him that from the beginning. It doesn’t matter who we play; there aren’t going to be many guys quick enough or fast enough to stay in front of him for 94 feet. He’s as quick and as fast as anybody.”
Bone said being able to better process the game mentally has really helped him. With 56 starts in his Tennessee career, there’s not much he hasn’t seen, and figuring out how to apply that knowledge and “attack” has been a big part of his development as a player.
“The game is slow to me,” he said after Wednesday’s win. “If I mess up during a play, I’m like, ‘Oh, OK. They’re going to do this, so I can’t do this again.’ I’m processing the game in my head before it happens, and it helps me be in attack mode.
“Honestly, I shouldn’t allow any team to press me with my speed. After those two turnovers, I said I can’t allow them to trap me anymore throughout this game.”
That growth and understanding from Barnes’ starting point guard is the reason that while the Vols mostly have the same personnel this season, they aren’t the same players.
“Jordan’s getting ready to head into his third conference season, and he had a lot to learn,” Barnes said. “He’s always played basketball, but he hasn’t played with a purpose. Now he understands that something is going on all the time and, as a point guard, ‘I’m responsible for what we’re getting into.’
“He needs to understand who is doing what in the game, but he’s getting better at it.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.