Winter 'Tis the Season Banter Thread 2018-2019

[Holston_River_Rambler]

 

[Carvers Gap]

As Barnes noted during the win streak, it is important to keep winning, but we must also make sure that we are still improving.  I really like Barnes as a coach.  I like how his team plays the game.  He will be honest with them, and they have learned to receive coaching.  That doesn't make our schedule easier, but I think we will respond.

[Blue Ridge]

Bantering in a banter thread. Huh. Imagine that. 

 

Re: UT-UK, I think this game said more about UK than UT. Kentucky is a buzzsaw at the moment and firing on all cylinders. Know who else is firing on all cylinders? LSU. I think UT beats UK in TBA but loses to LSU in the Pete. Barring disaster on the road vs. Florida or Bama, that would all but ensure an LSU regular season championship. 

Between games at UT, at Ole Miss, and at home vs Auburn, UK may well have two more losses on its schedule. As well as Cal has them playing, tradition dictates an impending late season blunder against a middle-of-the-pack SEC West opponent. ESPN can all but guarantee an Ole Miss win on 3/5 by throwing the game on ESPN or ESPN2 with Karl Ravech and Jimmy Dykes. Ole Miss, with 4 losses but with home games against Kentucky and Tennessee remaining, could very well still nab the 2 seed.

[Holston_River_Rambler]

38 minutes ago, Blue Ridge said:

Bantering in a banter thread.

 

[Carvers Gap]

1 hour ago, Blue Ridge said:

Bantering in a banter thread. Huh. Imagine that. 

 

Re: UT-UK, I think this game said more about UK than UT. Kentucky is a buzzsaw at the moment and firing on all cylinders. Know who else is firing on all cylinders? LSU. I think UT beats UK in TBA but loses to LSU in the Pete. Barring disaster on the road vs. Florida or Bama, that would all but ensure an LSU regular season championship. 

Between games at UT, at Ole Miss, and at home vs Auburn, UK may well have two more losses on its schedule. As well as Cal has them playing, tradition dictates an impending late season blunder against a middle-of-the-pack SEC West opponent. ESPN can all but guarantee an Ole Miss win on 3/5 by throwing the game on ESPN or ESPN2 with Karl Ravech and Jimmy Dykes. Ole Miss, with 4 losses but with home games against Kentucky and Tennessee remaining, could very well still nab the 2 seed.

Yeah, I mean there is still a lot of regular-season basketball to be played as you point out.  I think Duke still has to play UNC twice.  Zion can ball when his game is on.  Going to be interesting to see if the Vols can get hot in the tourney.   No matter where they are seeded, they will be a force in their bracket if they get hot.  As John noted, they have many of the pieces needed to win games in the tourney.  Tennessee has shown, excluding Saturday, that they can get into grinder games where every possession matters. Alexander is a big piece to the puzzle.  I hope he catches fire.  Our rotation might also be a player short of what we need w Pons recovering from facial surgery.  It has been a great season even with Saturday's loss, and this team can still make plenty of noise if they can fight down the stretch.  I am glad the LSU game is early....we don't want to play games down there late in the day in any sport that requires fans sitting in the stands.  Last year, we would get teams into "fist fight in a phone booth" games where our defense would carry us.  We need to get back to the defensive mindset IMHO... We went to the UGA game last year where we clinched the SEC.  The game was not pretty nor overly exciting.  The Vols just pounded on Georgia until Georgia folded.  Plenty of hardware still to play for...just need to shake that one off and play our game.   Tennessee reminds me of one of Florida's title teams several years ago...I think that team lost a few head scratchers(we may have swept them that year) and had a lower seed than they likely deserved.  I picked them to win my bracket, because I knew if they got hot...they would be very tough to beat.  I think the Vols are a similar team.   Though they are my team, I will likely send them deep into the tourney in both of my brackets....I think there are just a handful of teams with enough balance to beat us.  With veteran guys on that team, I think they can weather physical play when the game is on the line in the future.  

  

[BillT]

how do you get freezing rain when the ground temp is above 32 and the air temp as well above 32?

[tnweathernut]

2 hours ago, Blue Ridge said:

Bantering in a banter thread. Huh. Imagine that. 

 

Re: UT-UK, I think this game said more about UK than UT. Kentucky is a buzzsaw at the moment and firing on all cylinders. Know who else is firing on all cylinders? LSU. I think UT beats UK in TBA but loses to LSU in the Pete. Barring disaster on the road vs. Florida or Bama, that would all but ensure an LSU regular season championship. 

Between games at UT, at Ole Miss, and at home vs Auburn, UK may well have two more losses on its schedule. As well as Cal has them playing, tradition dictates an impending late season blunder against a middle-of-the-pack SEC West opponent. ESPN can all but guarantee an Ole Miss win on 3/5 by throwing the game on ESPN or ESPN2 with Karl Ravech and Jimmy Dykes. Ole Miss, with 4 losses but with home games against Kentucky and Tennessee remaining, could very well still nab the 2 seed.

Kentucky may be peaking too soon, at least that's what I keep telling myself.  I think we win when they come to TBA.  I'm not sold on LSU.  They were almost taken out by a bad Georgia team the other day.  Will be interesting to see how the season plays out for all the top teams.  Kansas seems to be putting the pieces back together. Duke is beatable (should have gotten beat by Louisville, all they had to do was take care of the basketball and it was a 10+ point win).  Too bad that didn't happen.  I'd have loved to have watched the fall out from that type of a loss.

UT is better than their showing at KY, but it's hard to keep winning in college basketball.  It was the perfect storm for UT to take one on the chin with LSU getting lucky in knocking them off at Rupp.  They don't lose 2 in a row at home and after what we did to them last year, Cal had them more than ready.  We will be ready for them next time.  Looking forward to seeing how they respond vs Vandy tonight.  Even if we have two more losses the rest of the regular season we likely don't drop below a 3 seed and will be in a good position to make a run in the big dance.

[Math/Met]

As a UK fan, I was just happy how Kentucky played against UT. Finally played how fans had been expecting going into the season. They have been improving for the past several weeks, but they finally put it all together.  It’s just one game though, and it means nothing if they can’t sustain that level of intensity the rest of the season.  

Tennessee is a much better team than they showed against UK. We all know that. I fully expect it to be a different game in Knoxville. I’m hoping for the win, but I went into the season expecting to split with UT.  Rupp is a tough place to play (especially during a big game), but TBA is also tough.  I know UT will be out for revenge.

Regarding the refs, I don’t think anyone was more surprised by how the game was called than UK fans. We expected our big guys to have two fouls each in the first few minutes against Williams.

[Holston_River_Rambler]

I think the Euro was about to deliver, if it had only been run out to 360 hours, what a run I think it would have been!

 

[tnweathernut]

2 minutes ago, Math/Met said:

As a UK fan, I was just happy how Kentucky played against UT. Finally played how fans had been expecting going into the season. They have been improving for the past several weeks, but they finally put it all together.  It’s just one game though, and it means nothing if they can’t sustain that level of intensity the rest of the season.  

Tennessee is a much better team than they showed against UK. We all know that. I fully expect it to be a different game in Knoxville. I’m hoping for the win, but I went into the season expecting to split with UT.  Rupp is a tough place to play (especially during a big game), but TBA is also tough.  I know UT will be out for revenge.

Regarding the refs, I don’t think anyone was more surprised by how the game was called than UK fans. We expected our big guys to have two fouls each in the first few minutes against Williams.

They very well could have with the football they let them get away with in the first half.  My problem was more with how they called the second half.  They went from letting them be very aggressive to calling touch fouls.  Officiating didn't lose that game for us, but for us to have shot our first FT's with 5 minutes gone in the second half with the aggressiveness KY played with was a bit ridiculous.  Either way, it was easily the best game KY has put together all year.  Congrats on the win......

[Math/Met]

14 minutes ago, tnweathernut said:

My problem was more with how they called the second half.  They went from letting them be very aggressive to calling touch fouls.

That’s my biggest issue with officiating in general. I understand that missed calls happen (the LSU/UK game is a good example) and I try not to complain about that, but there’s just no consistency in how physical they’ll let the game be played from game to game (or even from the first half to the second half).

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Yes please, I'll take 3:

 

 

[BillT]

basketball officiating?  i could have blocked 10+ shots a game in highs school since i could jump over 44 inches which was about 1.5feet higher than any opponent......BUT the refs called fouls on every blocked shot so i stopped doing it freshman year......refs have a hard job but very few do it well.

 

 

 

[TellicoWx]

18z GFS continues the cruel fantasy land tease lol

[Wurbus]

2 hours ago, TellicoWx said:

18z GFS continues the cruel fantasy land tease lol

The way this winter is going, this will probably keep showing up for a week and then go poof.

[Blue Ridge]

So much for my bold prediction above...lol.

[tnweathernut]

51 minutes ago, Blue Ridge said:

So much for my bold prediction above...lol.

 

Haha, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I thought KY may have a letdown against Missouri.  Looks like they built a lead and kind of coasted to a 66-58 win. 

Did anyone watch the game?  I had to get some sleep, but I wonder if the commentators beat them up a bit for how they looked in an 8 point win?  It seemed to me the crew calling the TN game beat them up pretty good with how they played in only beating Vandy by 12? 

TN struggled again on the offensive end, but I was impressed with the effort on the defensive end.  I thought TN looked solid last night defending.  I believe they will be tough to stop once in the tourney.  I think they will be tough to handle for teams that haven't seen them play.  Can't wait to see how they finish, where they are seeded, and what their quadrant of the bracket looks like!

[Greyhound]

48 minutes ago, tnweathernut said:

Haha, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I thought KY may have a letdown against Missouri.  Looks like they built a lead and kind of coasted to a 66-58 win. 

Did anyone watch the game?  I had to get some sleep, but I wonder if the commentators beat them up a bit for how they looked in an 8 point win?  It seemed to me the crew calling the TN game beat them up pretty good with how they played in only beating Vandy by 12? 

TN struggled again on the offensive end, but I was impressed with the effort on the defensive end.  I thought TN looked solid last night defending.  I believe they will be tough to stop once in the tourney.  I think they will be tough to handle for teams that haven't seen them play.  Can't wait to see how they finish, where they are seeded, and what their quadrant of the bracket looks like!

I watched the KY game.  Pretty physical game and never really seemed that Missouri was a threat to win.  They raved and raved over PJ Washington for KY, and bragged on them for beating TN.  Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes and Laura Rutledge were the ESPN crew calling the game.  I like them in the fact they come across unbiased, light-hearted and more factual.  Now that whistle-goober color commentator for the TN game last night.....can't stand that guy.  He always seems to have nothing but negative to say about TN.  Which if it's warranted, then so be it.  But don't let your personal feelings get in the way of doing your job.  The post game analysis from the ESPN studio crew about UT was spot on....it's the grind of February, everyone is tired, and now you are playing teams for the second time this season.....so the games will be closer and uglier because they are already in tune with scouting report and familiar with them from previous games.  

[Carvers Gap]

As Hubbs said this AM, he was expecting Barnes to be less than complimentary of the team in light of his frustrated looks on the bench during the game.  However, I think Coach really likes defense and their defense was decent last night.  I think he knows that his team will need great defense against LSU.  I think he said that you can't really coach a ball to go into the basket, but you have to play your way through it...or something like that.  Our shots will eventually drop.  Our defense needs to be very good until that happens.  Again, I just think the soft conference schedule has done us no favors getting us ready for the final stretch of important games.  At some point, I think that this team elevates its level of play.  I thought Fulkerson played a heckuva game last night.  He was active and the team seemed a bit stronger with him in the game.  Is he finally getting back his edge after his injury?  Might be.  Just seemed like the light turned on last night for him...  I think by SEC tourney time, we have our guys playing at a high level.  This stretch of games will force them to.  They need to play great defense, rebound, and take good shots.  Pretty easy formula.  

[Wurbus]

Vegas getting their 2nd or 3rd snow this week right now. Crazy times.

[Holston_River_Rambler]

 

[John1122]

Add Los Angeles to the areas seeing snow out west. I expect the trough to move east and for Florida to get a March snow while we get nothing.

[weathertree4u]

2 hours ago, John1122 said:

Add Los Angeles to the areas seeing snow out west. I expect the trough to move east and for Florida to get a March snow while we get nothing.

So, anyone want to take a stab at winter 2019/2020? Got to be better than this!

[BlunderStorm]

I just want a feb 2015 redux....sigh.

[Greyhound]

So, anyone want to take a stab at winter 2019/2020? Got to be better than this!

Sure!!! Once again, we will all be going ape-poop over analogs, models, El/La No-No status and the various alphabet soup of teleconnections. And no matter how much we prognosticate, analyze, curse, bargain, pray, etc, we will sadly ONCE AGAIN realize that the weather is going to do what it's going to do. We will all be mad, swear off this hobby forever at every tease/bust.....but like moths to light, we will immediately be back when flurries show up in the 384 hour range. For some people it's "Salt Life" or "Lake Life".......but in the Tennessee Valley, tracking the repeated highs and lows of winter weather is OUR way of life - it's what we do.

 

That's my prediction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BlunderStorm]

ELO's Concerto for a rainy day really fits the current mood...

 

 

[#NoPoles]

Hi, Im moving to Nashville. Got a job offer. Need advice on apartment hunting. I am in MA, and might only have 2 weeks to move before the job starts. Work is on the SW side of Nashville. Any tips, or anyone have connections?

[Holston_River_Rambler]

It has been so rainy that I got in my car, full sun blaring at me, and turned on my windshield wipers.

[Math/Met]

Is that picture of the ref ( LSU-TN game) holding a LSU shirt real? If so, that's a terrible look for SEC officials.

[tnweathernut]

2 minutes ago, Math/Met said:

Is that picture of the ref ( LSU-TN game) holding a LSU shirt real? If so, that's a terrible look for SEC officials.

Yes, it is.  He claims he was overseas and found the shirt and just wanted to give Alabama fans a hard time, but I don't buy it.  He was much more active wrt questionable calls in that game (29 to 15 whistles in favor of LSU).  Barnes wasn't happy and I consider him pretty fair minded and not one to make a big deal out of nothing. 

The SEC office knows about it and has put out a statement trying to smooth it over talking about all his accolades as an official. I personally don't think he ever needs to officiate an LSU game again with several questionable calls and several missed calls in favor of LSU.  You don't make that foul call with 0.6 seconds left in OT either.  He was the one that blew the whistle on that play 80 feet from the basket.

All this said, TN absolutely had chances to put them away and didn't.  Kudos to LSU (and their fans) for taking advantage of the situation and pulling out the win.