The Good, Bad, and Ugly From Tennessee Basketball's Performance vs Mercer

The Tennessee Volunteers were able to get to the paint in this game, as nearly all of their big men played a great game. Majority of their points came from the big men, as they were able to get to basket and score. The Vols have the chance to be able to dominate throughout the season with the likes of Jaylen Carey, J.P. Estrella, Cade Phillips, Felix Okpara, and DeWayne Brown. I believe the best person in the paint for the Vols on Monday night was Brown in his minutes, but Estrella played the biggest factor from a statistical standpoint. This is one thing that you can point at even during a struggling performance and be confident in, which made me feel this was the best factor of the game.

The Bad

The bad would be the guard play. It felt like the Tennessee Vols backcourt was absent for most of the night. While there were multiple players who played, and there were still some good moments at time, this is definitely something the Tennessee program will look to improve come next game. The most outstanding performer in the guard group was freshman Troy Henderson. He had a pair of threes go in, but when it comes to the overall performance, the Vols seemed to fall behind their expectations quite a few steps. The Vols still seen some flashes out of guys like Ja'Kobi Gillespie, and Amari Evans, but you definitely want more out of some of these guards like Amaree Abram, Ethan Burg, Bishop Boswell, and others. It's still the first game, this is something that will get better. This is a fresh team with a lot of new faces.

The Ugly

The ugly was the easiest topic to pick, which isn't a good sign. The worst thing about this performance was the amount of turnovers they had. The Vols turned the ball over nearly 20 times, and the Vols had 14 more than the Mercer Bears. This is not a great factor. The Vols have to be more careful with the ball, as if they get into league play and still have these mistakes they will be burned. This will be something that needs to be immediately fixed. This is a big glaring problem, but even this problem is fixable. The Vols have the chance to fix this on Saturday when they play against Northern Kentucky.