Happy ... Wow what a great basketball season Monday:
I'm going to be brief here today since I'm pretty out of it after doing HOURS and HOURS of postgame stuff after a great ride from Tennessee Hoops.
Proud Of Our Guys: 
We celebrated Tennessee's season last night for close to 4 hours on our Garza Law Tennessee Basketball Overtime Call In. Tennessee was beaten by a better team while playing a very good game. No shame in that. What's really sad is that our fans (the best fanbase in America) have to wait a little longer before getting to experience seeing their team in the Final Four. Basketball's post-season is like a cruel joke to Rick Barnes and Tennessee hoops. Both deserve better.
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Orange Throat Leads Off! Our UT insider Orange Throat leads off today's blog and pretty much carries the day after a heartbreaking result in Detroit.
Orange Throat
'T Club Team:
Random musings as we reflect on a heartbreaking loss in the Elite Eight in Detroit:
BAD DRAW ... We can now say UConn and Purdue are the two best teams in this tournament and will likely meet for the championship a week from tonight. It is also true that Auburn and Alabama have both stolen Final Four appearances that should belong to our superior fan base. This Tennessee team could have advanced way more easily in the South and West regions. Missing that 1-seed in the West had to be on our minds as we saw our Volunteers get dominated by 7-4 center Zach Edey and his officiating accomplices.
NO KADOOS FOR AIDONT ... No offense but 6-11 Jonas Aidoo (thanks to Refalytics Jud for the nickname) played smaller than 6-8 Tobe Awaka and 6-11 freshman J.P. Estrella was more effective against the massive Edey. Estrella is a promising prospect for next season, and he certainly grew some chest hair yesterday. Aidoo, who has been plagued by knee problems, looked real stiff in the NCAA tourney. He fumbled the ball when it was passed to him. He was awful. Not sure how much NIL money I'd invest in him on next year's roster. Not saying I told you so but maybe I am ... was worried about this team's inside depth heading into this tournament. We ran out of fouls to give inside.
KADOOS TO KNECHT ... Dalton Knecht played his knass off yesterday. He had no help on offense, other than Triple J and Justin Gainey. Ziggy played his heart out, as always, but was off the mark offensively. His pull-up shots in the lane were no doubt influenced by the Purdue skyscraper. We'll miss Dalton Knecht next season. Best wishes to you, young man.
WHERE DOES RICK BARNES GO FROM HERE? It was great to see him equal Bruce Pearl's record of taking this program to the Elite Eight. He produced a Final Four-worthy team but got a tough draw in playing Purdue. The portal has been open for several days so the Vol staff has to get in the mix and in the hunt and for sure work has already been done. There will be lots of moving pieces on this roster in and out in the next several days.
VOLTELLOS BOUNCE BACK FROM ... A terrible Friday night where they got run-ruled by the Georgia Bulldogs and win the series. The Tennessee pitching staff got ripped on Friday and Saturday but managed to win the Saturday slugfest. After giving up 27 runs to the Dogs the first two games, who had Zander Sechrist and Nate Snead shutting Georgia out yesterday in a series win on their singo card?
LOOKS LIKE A THIN NFL DRAFT ... For departed members of 2023 Volunteers right now. Matt Miller of ESPN was out with a full seven-round mock last week and RB Jaylen Wright was the first Vol in the third round at pick #80 to the Bengals. Corner Kamal Hadden was next in the fifth round at pick #169 to Green Bay and Joe Milton just made the list in seventh with pick #256. That's the last pick before the last pick.
SPEAKING OF RUNNING BACK ... Josh Heupel and staff may be in the market for a RB when the spring transfer portal opens on April 15, given Cam Seldon just went on the shelf with shoulder surgery. The program is high on true freshman Peyton Lewis but he got his shoulder cleaned up in January and is out this spring.
Orange Throat'
Seeing Zach Edey play 40 minutes of hard pounding, physical basketball and escape with only one foul is telling. There are different rules for him than everyone else in the game. He is a flat out roughhousing player that fouls all the time. In fact, he fouls so much that they don't call anything on him. Tennessee needed to play an A+++ perfect basketball game to beat him. As it was they played an A-/A and lost by a few possessions. Zach Edey's teammates were a little better than Knecht's. That was the difference yesterday.
Throatie is right ... Tennessee would've gotten past NC State or Alabama or Clemson or Duke. Unfortunately Rick Barnes just doesn't win NCAA Tournament games when he's the lower seed. He's done it once in 13 tries. And Tennessee hoops is Tennessee hoops. Therefore, what happened yesterday isn't really surprising though it really sucks.
NO KADOOS FOR AIDONT ... Last year Tennessee made a sizeable investment in Aidoo after a few blueblood programs came sniffing around on him. And why not? Aidoo is an excellent rim protector with an interesting range on offense. He's just too much of a finesse player at times that he can get overwhelmed in certain types of games. This time around he's going to have some of the top programs in the sport making overtures. Tennessee has to decide what the goal here is and ultimately if he's worth the investment. The ceiling for Estrella is unlimited. Rick Barnes believes he's going to be the best big man he's had at Tennessee. The question is ... will this happen sooner or later for him. Awaka might be worth investing in but he can't find a way to stay on the floor. Yesterday he fouled out in 13 minutes. That's simply not viable though he does nice things on the floor at times against certain competition.
WHERE DOES RICK BARNES GO FROM HERE? The belief is that Tennessee will be active in the transfer portal and already have several guys lined up. We expect at least two guys from the current roster to enter the portal with Dilione and Jefferson as the top two candidates to jump. As far as NIL it should be pointed out that Tennessee's two highest paid players on this year's roster were Knecht and Dilione. Obviously Freddie isn't worth the money as he barely saw the floor whereas Knecht was a bargain at any price. How Tennessee rebuilds from here will take a deft touch and we'll track it every step of the way here.
One player to watch from here is Chaz Lanier, a rugged, sharp shooting guard from University of North Florida via Ensworth High School in the mid state. We'll have more about him down the line here but watch this name with the Vols. He can really shoot it. We'll have a more precise roster breakdown at midweek here where we deep dive into who stays, who goes and who might be added.
VOLTELLOS BOUNCE BACK FROM ...a terrible Friday night where they got run-ruled Can you imagine how wobbly the wheels on Tennessee's Baseball Bandwagon were getting Saturday when the team was down big early against Georgia? It looked like the Dawgs were getting ready to KO Tony Vols and choke him out in the middle of the squared circle. Then the bats got untracked and the rest is history. Tennessee's next couple of series versus Auburn and LSU are against teams with only 3 SEC wins combined thus far. This issue here isn't opponents. Tennessee's concern is on the mound. How will this team cobble together enough pitching to make it work? Can they? We saw Tony using a key arm to get through Saturday in a game that seemed out of reach. This Tennessee Baseball team figures to play some beer league baseball games before they figure this thing out. And yes ... I do think they'll figure it out before the NCAA Tournament. The SEC is absurdly challenging.
Finally: I'm for Iowa versus LSU tonight. That's one women's basketball game to watch this season. It's a 7pm tip off. Kim Mulkey might break out a Katy Perry outfit for this one. That lady could be the neediest woman's coach of all time. Go Kaitlin Clark go ...
Finally II: I'll unpack the unlikely story of DJ Burns and NC State reaching the Final Four. Nothing about them still playing basketball makes any sense. Poor Rick Barnes has to listen to some chide him for running a guy off the team that was never going to play here. Burns starred in a regional final leading his team to the Final Four on the same day that Barnes was losing AGAIN to Matt Painter and Purdue in the NCAA Tournament. Now that's some tournament cruelty right there.
ICYMI from Wednesday: TLD Logistics Tennessee Baseball Report
(@Drive4TLD) Here's Matt Dixon breaking it down ...
Matt Dixon
'Votellos Run Rule Tennessee Tech:
Tennessee snapped a 2-game losing streak to Tennessee Tech with an 11-1 run-rule victory Tuesday night at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
The Volunteers used a different pitcher in each of the seven innings to hold the Golden Eagles to just three hits.
Tennessee scored 11 runs on 13 hits to improve to 22-4 on the season.
With runners on the corners and no outs in the bottom of the 1st, Christian Moore grounded into a 6-4-3 double play but brought home the runner at 3rd to give the Vols an early 1-0 lead.
Tennessee loaded the bases with only one out in the bottom of the 3rd but a 6-4-3 double play ended the threat.
The Vols loaded the bases with only out again in the 4th inning. This time pushing across two runs. First on a Charlie Taylor fielder’s choice ground ball to shortstop and then on a double steal that saw Reese Chapman’s cross home plate before Taylor was tagged out in a rundown.
Tennessee blew the game open in the 5th inning. A 2-run home run by Blake Burke made it 5-0. It was Burke’s 9th home run of the season and 39th for his UT career, passing Todd Helton. He’s now just one long ball shy of tying the school record for career home runs.
Back-to-back doubles from Kavares Tears and Hunter Ensley plated another run to make it 6-0.
Later in the frame, Reese Chapman crushed a no-doubter to right field for a 3-run home run to extend the lead to 9-0.
A 2-out single by Theo Bryant IV in the top of the 3rd was the Golden Eagles’ only hit until Bryant IV doubled off the top of the wall in right centerfield with one out in the 6th inning.
Bryant IV would eventually come around to score on a muffed catch at 1st base later in the inning to make it 9-1.
After loading the bases with no outs in the bottom of the 7th, Chapman hit a ground-rule double down the right field line that walked off the Golden Eagles 11-1.
Notes: — Billy Amick was out of the lineup for the first time all season vs the Golden Eagles with appendicitis. He’s expected to miss all three games this weekend vs Georgia as well.
— Ariel Antigua earned his first career start at shortstop and made a couple of nice plays in the field. Regular starting shortstop Dean Curley slid over to 3rd base, giving fans a preview of the likely left side of the infield next season.
— Hitting in the leadoff spot for the first time all season, Robin Villeneuve was 3-for-3 and scored twice.
— Reese Chapman made his 8th start of the season and went 4-for-4 with a 3-run home run, double and five RBIs.
— Freshman Dylan Loy made his first career start. He retired the side in order to open the game in his only inning of work.
— Freshman Derek Schaefer earned the win after pitching a three up, three down 2nd inning with two strikeouts.
@Mattdixon3'
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Busted
Posted: Sun, Mar 24th, 4:22 PM
