The CheckerBoard

So I thought it would be nice to take a break from all the football speculation going on and talk about basketball, which is coming up soon. I love, love, love Tennessee basketball. I didn't really start following it until Pearl's last season, but it really got its hooks in me once I did. Like a lot of people, I was concerned by the Cuonzo hire at first, but it's obvious he's taking the program in the right direction.

The video I linked is from the Vanderbilt game to close out the regular season this year. It was a game where winning would vault us to a tie for second place while a loss would push us to around sixth. I managed to get great tickets for cheap while it looked like the year was sunk near the beginning. Even though it wasn't the first UT BB game I've been to, it was by far the best one. I really feel like the experience of going to a college basketball game is supremely underrated. The place gets LOUD. Like, louder than Neyland at times it felt like. I mean, consider this: Bruce Pearl won 96 percent of the games he played at Thompson-Boling Arena. Imagine if a coach could do that at Neyland (or almost anywhere else, for that matter). The atmosphere really is second to one.

I'm not knocking Tennessee football when I say I really think Tennessee should be a basketball school. Top-five attendance in the nation, great arena, and fertile nearby recruiting ground. There's no reason why we can't compete with programs like Kentucky, Duke, or North Carolina. Those schools have tradition, sure, but at the end of the day, what matters are the wins and the banners. And if Cuonzo keeps us on the right track, I think we'll start seeing alot more of those, sooner rather than later.