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 Boy Does It Feel Good

Frank DiPatri  2/1/09

          Last night, the Tennessee Vols took on the Florida Gators in a bitter rivalry spanning every sport. In basketball, however, Bruce Pearl has had Billy Donovan’s number. He’s 6-1 since coming to UT against the hated Gators after last night’s routing. Amidst 20,000 screaming fans, the Gators were just overmatched.

         The game started in a flurry of Vols’ 3’s. Everyone got in on the action. Tyler Smith, certainly not known as a shooter, knocked down three in the first half, while freshman Scotty Hopson finally lived up to his highly recruited prowess as an outside shooter. Hopson’s main attribute to his shot is how high he shoots the ball. I don’t think Yao Ming on Shaq’s shoulders could block his shot. It looks like the ball is gunning for one of the banners hanging from the roof, and then, it finds its way back to earth and straight through the basket. The entire first half was dominated by the Vols. The Gators’ soft zone defense was no match for the red hot Vols’ shooting, and having star Nick Calathes on the bench didn’t help. The tally at half was 39-23 in favor of the Vols.

          The second half started remotely the same way. The Vols stretched out their lead to 23 before the whole team started to get sloppy. They took covered shots while teammates were wide open, and became careless with the ball. After only five turnovers in the first half, they had seven in the first ten minutes of the second half. This was the Gators’ ticket to claw their way back into the game. Each second seemed to take two minutes to tick off the clock as time wound down on Florida. They cut the lead to ten with 3:45 left to play, but that was as close as the Gators would get. Down the stretch, the Vols started playing much smarter and ensured a win and another SEC victory.

          This game was all Vols, all game. The 18-3 Gators drop to 18-4 (5-2) while the Vols pick up a huge win at home to come up to 13-7 (4-2). A much better defensive squad, the Vols are looking like an SEC championship team if they can just keep the offense going. The schedule gets a little easier now to close out the season, so they should be able to make a very good run in the SEC tournament and maybe even the NCAA tournament.