This has been a bit of a hot-button issue among fans/ analysts/ etc., so I thought I’d weigh in, regardless of my feelings toward the individual players. Santi Vescovi has been one of my personal favorite Vols since he came in and drilled six 3s in his first ever game against LSU after being in the States for less than a week.
Josiah-Jordan James has been somewhat unfairly held to standards that come with being a 5-star, point guard recruit who was misrepresented as a player from the get go. He’s not a lead guard and never was, despite playing with the ball in his hands and what seemed to be some tertiary initiator skills. Still, both have been instrumental in the radical change in culture that Rick Barnes has instilled and have been invaluable members of the program no matter what the stats show.
With all that said, UT looks like it has its best chance to finally make a Final Four since Grant Williams’ junior year when he was surrounded with Lamonte Turner, Jordan Bone, Jordan Bowden, Admiral Schofield, Kyle Alexander and the rest of the 2018-2019 team. If I would have asked why that is, before the season started, how many would have guessed “it’s because Dalton Knecht is a stone-cold assassin, Jonas Aidoo finally reached part of his potential and Zakai Ziegler became possibly the best guard in the country?” Not many, I’d say.
But with the emergence of Aidoo as a legitimate scoring threat, the black-magic of Knecht and Ziegler becoming possibly the best point guard at UT since I don’t know when, the senior leaders of the team have taken on new roles. And instead of driving the car as many expected, Vescovi and James have been relegated to the third-row seat of the minivan.
It’s not without reason, and I’m sure the guys would be the first to agree with you on that topic: both are having the worst scoring seasons of his careers — with James down from 10 points per-game last season, a career low, to nine a contest this year; while Vescovi is coming off his two best scoring seasons — 13.1 PPG in 2021 with Kennedy Chandler running point and then 12.5 per-game last year. But he’s scoring the ball 40 percent less than last season, averaging just 7.5 PPG. He’s also shooting a career-low 34 percent from downtown on a career-worst four tries from deep, which is down from his career-high 7.5 from last year.
On the surface level, the duo’s drop in scoring could be rationalized fairly easily, since Zielger, Knecht and Aidoo are having such prolific offensive seasons and there are only so many shots to go around. James’ usage is down from 22.6 to 16.2, and Santi’s is down from 19.8 to 14. But it’s not just the sheer numbers that are troubling — James has always been a bit streaky and he’s never been a pure scorer. With Santi, things are a bit more troubling, considering it’s that he looks unsure when to shoot and when to pass, and passes up good shots to take lower-percentage shots — like when he pump fakes an open 3 to take two dribbles and shoot mid-range 2s off the dribble or floaters in the lane, on which he shoots 28 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
CBB Analytics
This all suggests the problem could be more than just a prolonged slump and, more troubling, a confidence issue, or maybe he’s still just trying to find his new role on a team that’s changed the way, the pace and how much it scores offensively.
Like I mentioned above, one school of thought is that this is likely just a function of the new cogs in the offense and the vets still trying to find their relative role. Both James and Vescovi’s usage numbers are down, from 22.6 to 16.2 and 19.8 to 14, respectively. It’s worth noting that while Santi’s shooting numbers are down, he’s still averaging nearly four rebounds, 2.7 assists, a steal, just one turnover and is shooting the ball from two-point range at the highest clip of his career. Vescovi and James are second and third on the team in total assists, while James is the second-leading rebounder on the team (6.2 per-game, behind Aidoo’s 7.5) and averages 12 boards per-100 possessions, which just divides the stat by the total number of a teams’ possessions instead of by the total number of games, effectively removing the team’s pace from the equation.
Additionally, plus/minus isn’t the perfect stat, but Santi and James, for all their counting stat struggles, lead the team with +232 for Vescovi and +247 for Josiah. That certainly counts for something.
CBB Analytics
But it’s the middle of February now, and while the Vols are sixth on KenPom with the 15th-best offensive efficiency and the sixth-best defense, they’re just six days removed from an absolute beatdown at the hands of a Texas A&M team that is one of the worst shooting teams in the SEC, posting the second-worst figures in the SEC in effective FG % and TS %, at 45.5 and 50.4, respectively. (Per @CBBAnalytics)
The Vols had two scorers in double figures — Ziegler, who played 40 minutes and hit one of his eight 3s, and Dalton Knecht who hit 6-11 from 3 but missed all four of his two-point attempts and five of his nine FTs.
Now, this is a game when you’d expect the veterans on your team to nut up and will the team to victory, while weathering the barrage of Aggie 3s, navigating the hostile crowd while not getting caught in the riptide and getting sucked into the undertow and understanding how to attack the various defenses that the older guys on the team should expect Buzz Williams to throw at you. Instead, Santi and Josiah played a combined 61 minutes, scored nine points on 3-13 shooting and combined for three rebounds, three assists, three TOs and five fouls.
I wanna show some clips from that game that demonstrate where things went wrong for Tennessee, other than running into buzzsaws named Wade Taylor and Tyrece Radford.
I wanted to highlight this specific play because it’s been a running theme all season. Again, I’ll refer to the various ideas about Santi’s struggles: Santi’s too unselfish and is deferring to other guys on the team; he’s still not found his spot in the offensive pecking order; he’s been moved around and played out of position so much during his career, once he finally got to play his more natural spot, off the ball, he’s still adjusting to moving back to the secondary guard spot now that Zeigler’s back from the ACL.
Regardless, his 3-point attempt rate is the lowest of his career, his eFG% is the lowest it’s been since his freshman season, and his points produced is 192, down from 436 in ‘21 and 383 last year.
Tennessee couldn’t stop the ball against A&M if it had red lights at the top of the key. The ball penetration puts the defense into rotation and often causes late closeouts on 3-point shooters like you see above. This one doesn’t concern me that much, because as much as Santi has struggled shooting the ball, he still does plenty to help the team win.
This is just bad defense. The Vols have four players in the backcourt, and two of them are on the baseline. This creates a numbers advantage for the Aggies and an easy layup on the other end.
Despite James getting put in the spin cycle here, he’s actually been one of UT’s best defenders during the season. He’s currently third behind Jonas Aidoo (93.4), Tobe Awaka (94.9), posting a 96.8 figure.
Triple-J is just four games removed from his offensive outburst against Kentucky in Rupp, and that game is what feels like the blueprint for a Vols’ deep run in March. James doesn’t have to or need to score 26 for UT to win, but the scoring balance from the UK game feels like much more along the lines of what Tennessee will need to pull a game out of the mud when Knecht is having an off night or Aidoo can’t seem to find his touch around the rim.
UT scored 103 points, and that definitely won’t always be the case, but five players scored in double figures, and Tennessee had 22 assists on 24 made baskets. Zielger won’t score 26 every game, and neither will James, but that kind of scoring distribution and assist rate will usually spell a win for the good guys.
So, does Tennessee need Vescovi and James to score more in order to win games. Right now? No. But when things inevitably get tight come some random game in March, more than 16 points would certainly help Tennessee’s cause.