Joel Hollingsworth is the editor and co-author of Rocky Top Talk, SB Nation’s Tennessee Volunteers blog. You can visit his site at RockyTopTalk.com.
Tennessee Volunteers fans know a little something about expectations.
In the fall of 2005, fans of the football team had unwisely indulged in preseason fantasies of a national championship only to witness the program’s first losing season in 17 years. At the same time, basketball fans were witnessing the revival of a program that had been languishing in mediocrity for years and was widely expected to finish fifth out of six teams in the SEC East.
Credit coach Bruce Pearl for the turnaround. Summoned to the big leagues from mid-major Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the relatively unknown Pearl packed his bags and headed to Rocky Top in March, 2005, bringing with him a sometimes frightening, but always entertaining, style of basketball.
Pearl’s high-speed contraption delivers as promised. It is a thing of beauty when it works, but when it crashes, the carnage is vomit-inducingly horrific.
So what should Long Beach State fans expect on Friday? Expect the 49ers to turn the ball over on inbounds plays. In its last five games, more than half of Tennessee’s 60 steals came from this momentum-creating stratagem.
Expect the defensive pressure to continue even after the ball is successfully inbounded and brought up the court.
Expect Scottie Pippen-esque guard JaJuan Smith to perturb guard Aaron Nixon at least a little.
Expect SEC Player of the Year Chris Lofton to make at least one shot no other guard in the country would even consider taking.
Expect 6-foot-4 senior forward Dane Bradshaw to be relieved to be defending someone close to his own size. Bradshaw is generally matched up against opponents 6-foot-8 and taller, and despite this recurring disadvantage, he is able to hold his own through sheer determination and guile.
But Tennessee fans have learned the hard way to expect the unexpected. The system could become all chaos and no control against a team that runs its own system of regulated disarray. Expecting to create turnovers against a team stocked with nothing but excellent guards and forwards may be overly optimistic. The maturity of a senior-laden team may trump the talent of a team relying heavily on three freshmen.
So forget all of the expectations expect one: Anticipate a wildly entertaining and chaotic, high-speed dance this Friday in Columbus.
