Who's going to be the player to surprise the Vols?

I really like how this team played recently with Ethan on the bench with foul trouble. It was like they know they couldn't rely on Ethan going 1:1, and so they move the ball better and got shots in an offensive flow. Colorado largely knew how to bottle up Ethan's game inside the key, and I expect Tenn to be able to do the same. When Hunt and Lucas are moving with and without the ball really quickly, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. Earlier in the year, it would often result in TOs or bad shots, but that's really come down a lot.

As for your question, I expect a huge game from Alatishe and Andele with Fulkerson being either sidelined or at least not 100% (he would have to play heavily masked at minimum with fractures in facial bones) - I'm hoping we have a big advantage on the offensive glass. I'd like to see Andela do to Tenn what Battey did to us.

As a Vol fan who is your quickest guard on the team? That will probably be the guy. Tenn is elite on defense but the one area where they can struggle is with really quick guards who can get to the basket before the help defense can get there. Our guards minus Vescovi are athletic, strong, and have length but the raw quickness can give them problems.

Lucas has ice water in his veins...25-30 foot range. Had a couple key three pointers versus CU.

Thompson has decent size at 6'5". He is a someone that will have long stretches of being quiet on offense when he's defended well (closing out deep, double-teaming penetration). He needs space to hurt teams from the outside, so focusing defenses on him has worked. Hunt hasn't been someone that scores a lot, he's not a Wright type of player, but I do agree that he will likely be asked to take more shots than usual in this game. He's a pretty good shooter and can slash, but neither of those are polished. His movement does get his teammates open though. Ethan can get players into foul trouble, but that's usually when he's going inside and his defender isn't getting help. Ethan can get into foul trouble himself at times, which is usually because he's not quick enough to stay in good position with a slashing guard like Wright. Anybody that can shut down Wright should be able to do the same against any OSU player guard, but OSU has been good at finding scoring from a variety of players of late. However, Ethan is the go-to guy with the shot clock running down, and we don't have any other great options beyond him to get a shot off by themselves - if we are consistently needing to go deep into the shot clock to get a look, we'll be in trouble (which is your style, and ours as well) - it could be an ugly game overall. I actually expect our bigs to have the best chance to do damage on offense, as they can get a pretty good two-man game going and have the size and athleticism to cause problems. Alatishe is very tough to keep off the offensive glass as well I expect Pons will be tasked with trying to keep him off the offensive boards, even if Fulkerson is back, as it's more critical to match his athleticism than his size (he's only 6'7" anyway, but plays big). Lucas is a guard that you'll be able to stay with defensively, but he can end up getting his 3s anyway, as he's uncanny at hitting well-defended shots. Wildcards for us will be Calloo - at 6'10", he's a tough matchup because can get hot form 3, but can post and rebound well also. But he's been very unpredictable on what he will bring on any game - if he's not feeling it, he won't play. Silva can also hurt teams on the offensive end with his height, as he has a nice post-up game, so teams go at him quickly to get him in foul trouble, which often happens - he doesn't have the speed to make much of an impact at the defensive end. At that point, Andele comes in, who at 6'8" 250, brings a completely different presence inside. Both have nice touch around the basket though, so when the entry passes are there, they finish well.

I generally believe that the Pac-12 lets less physicality go than other conferences, and so it will be interesting to see how the game gets called as well. OSU may have less foul-trouble than usual as a lot of their fouls seem to be touch fouls. Others are the out-of-position ones that that will get called anywhere though, so if you have our defense on their heels, fouls trouble could easily happen to us.

Whoa- There’s a name from the archives.