KNOXVILLE - The 19th-ranked Tennessee men's basketball team will put its 31-game streak of home wins on the line Saturday as it hosts 13th-ranked Memphis at 3 p.m. at Thompson-Boling Arena.
The Volunteers are 7-1, the Tigers 8-1.
Here are three things I am looking at entering the highly publicized contest, which will be televised by ESPN.
1. Can anybody score? The Tigers and the Vols have two of the better defenses in the country. Tennessee ranks eighth in the country in scoring defense, allowing just 55.9 points per game, and is 13th in field-goal percentage defense at 36.5%. The Tigers are 10th in field-goal percentage at 36.2%. The game likely will come down to which team executes better, although it helps the Vols that they have a couple of players in senior guards Jordan Bowden and Lamonte Turner who are capable of going off script if things break down, which they have a tendency to do against solid defensive programs.
2. Depth concerns: Neither team is particularly deep. Tennessee has nine scholarship players available and pretty much uses every combination possible, while the Tigers use a lot of options but get a vast majority of their production from starters. They're also missing 16% of their scoring production without injured forward Lester Quinones and suspended center James Wiseman, so it appears they're just stealing some minutes with some of the substitution patterns they're making. This game may not come down to a role player making a big shot, but the winning team will be the one that gets the most production out of its role players when needed.
3. Feed the floor factor: Listen, this could be a classic game between a pair of top-20 basketball opponents. Or - and this is where I currently lean - it will be a sloppy contest between two teams with two head coaches who have had a war of words over the past year. Tigers coach Penny Hardaway's comments after Tennessee's 102-92 win last season in Memphis have fueled the Vols' fan base, which appears to be out for blood more than anything. My personal hope is the emotion is channeled in the right direction and spurs on a Tennessee team sporting the longest active winning streak among Division I men's basketball programs, and not in a negative direction that could mar a big-time contest between two in-state rivals.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.