Four quick takes on a solid road win

Winston-Salem, N.C. — Tennessee survived some serious foul trouble in the first half today and then rolled over Wake Forest in the second half for a 79-60 win. Here are four quick takes on today’s action.

1 — Second half surge — Tennessee got a brutal thistle from the refs in the first half today starting when Grant Williams was called for a foul one second into the game on while jostling for position on the tip-off.

He picked up his second foul in a hurry and played just six minutes in the first half. Despite his absence—as well as limited minutes from Admiral Schofield and Jordan Bowden due to fouls—the Vols banged to take a 36-35 lead into the halftime locker room.

Tennessee looked lethargic for much of that first half but it was tough to tell if that was simply because of having three starters on the bench for much of the first 20 minutes.

Whatever it was it looked like Rick Barnes flipped a switch at halftime.

Tennessee took control of the game with a serious spurt early in the second half and then sustained it. For the first 10 minutes of the second half Tennessee shot a blistering 67% from the field, got a couple of three-pointers from Jordan Bowden and a three-point play from Williams to jump out to a 54-45 lead.

The Vols cooled off a little, but not much, after that opening salvo shooting 59% in the half to outscore the Wake Forest 43-25, closing the game with a 13-0 run.

Shooting was an obviously big part of the turnaround, along with getting Williams back on the floor, but just as important was the Vols turning the tables on Wake Forest on the glass.

The Demon Deacons owned the boards in the first half, out rebounding Tennessee 19-11. The Vols flipped that in the second half with an 18-16 advantage on the glass.

2 — Good Kyle, bad Kyle — Anyone paying even a little bit of attention to Tennessee basketball this season knows that Kyle Alexander is one of the more enigmatic guys on the team.

The junior big man has had some nice moments this season, most notably a 13 point, 11 rebound effort agains Purdue.

However, that’s the only game of the season (before today) where he hit double figures and he’d been trending downwards lately.

In the Vols last three games Alexander had a combined 13 points and 11 rebounds, the same total he put up in a single afternoon against the Boilermakers.

He showed up today though and the Vols needed him in a big way during that first half with Williams and Schofield on the bench for long stretches.

He helped the Vols stay afloat with nine points on 4-of-4 shooting in the first half, holding down the fort until the second half when Williams returned.

Alexander finished the day with 11 points and four rebounds against a Wake Forest team that had some size.

History suggests that he won’t go for double digits with regularity but this is a much, much better Tennessee basketball team when he’s giving them some production.

3 — Who’s the second option? — This has been an ongoing question for the Vols all season long, but who’s the second scoring option behind Williams? That issue got seriously highlighted today when Williams picked up his second foul and played just six minutes in the first half.

Simply going by the numbers Admiral Schofield is the second option, averaging 11.5 ppg, but he’s a little too inconsistent as a shooter for my taste and I think he has a tendency, if he’s shot isn’t falling, to let that affect other aspects of his game.

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind who the second option should be. That would be Jordan Bowden (who we’ll discuss in detail below) but it’s not clear to me that Bowden sees himself that way.

But he should.

Despite averaging 26.9 minutes per game, second most on the team, Bowden ranks fourth on team in field goal attempts with 77. If you’re scoring at home, that’s seven per game. Not enough.

Williams leads the team, as he shoudl, with 130 field goal attempts on the year. Then he’s followed by Schofield with 108 and Lamonte Turner with 92.

Without being overtly critical of any individuals, there is something seriously wrong with those numbers and I’m guessing most of you can figure it out.

4 — Seriously Jordan Bowden, get selfish — I may just start copying and pasting whatever I wrote after the previous game about Bowden’s reluctance to become more selfish on the offensive end.

I totally, utterly and completely get the fact that Bowden looks to get his shots in the flow of the offense and doesn’t want to force anything, that’s admirable.

However, when you’re stroking the ball like Bowden is this season, you’re doing your team a disservice when you don’t hunt your looks more aggressively than Bowden does.

Today was an extreme example of both his efficiency and his selflessness.

Bowden took only five shots on the day, all from behind the arc, and he made them all.

After his 5-for-5 performance he’s now shooting an incredible 62% on the year. That’s far and away the best mark in the SEC and the biggest number I can ever recall seeing this deep into a season.

Again, this is all repetitive by now, I’ve been writing about it for two months, but Bowden is now officially the most reluctant great shooter I think I’ve ever seen. Usually guys who can shoot it like he has this season have a tendency to be ball hogs. That’s not the case with Bowden at all, which makes him a great teammate, but in my opinion he’d be an even better teammate if he’d hunt his own shot a little more.

Only twice this season has Bowden attempted more than seven shots in a game.