Randy Smth: My Mistakes And Grant Williams

At the ripe old age of 66 years old, soon to be 67, I find myself making more mistakes than I used to make; many more. In a column I wrote last week about the Howard-Riverside rivalry, I referred to one of the key figures on the great Riverside squads as Sylvester Davenport. Davenport actually was a star at Soddy-Daisy in the early 1970s. The 6'-7" player to whom I was thinking was Clarence, "Too Tall" Smith. There was a player on the 1976 Riverside team named Sylvester Ware and I imagine that's who I mixed things up with.  I thought I did pretty well being able to recall at least two players and the coaches from the 1976 Howard and Riverside teams. Maybe I did, but I thank the many people who called me on it.

I made another mistake a few months ago. I bought into the negative hype surrounding the Tennessee men's basketball team. You know, the hype of the pre season polls that tabbed the Volunteers to finish 13th out of 14 SEC teams in the 2017-2018 season. The Vols won their 20th game of the season on Wednesday night, beating Florida 62-57 at Thompson-Boling Arena.  Tennessee is now 20-7 on the year and ranked 19th in the latest AP poll. 

Another mistake I made was under-estimating 6'-7" post player Grant Williams of the Volunteers. I though all along he was too small to be a dominant big man in the SEC. Boy was I ever wrong about that. Williams bounced back from one of his worst games of the season with 23 points to lead the Vols past the Gators. He absolutely took over in the second half and willed the Big Orange to the victory, their tenth in fifteen SEC games.

Following that dismal performance against Georgia in a double-digit loss on Saturday, Williams was called out by his coach Rick Barnes. Basically Barnes said rumors about Williams having back problems were not true and he wanted to see more performance and less talking from his sophomore star. Message received. He totally took over the game in the second half, and no Gator could stop him. He scored 23 of his team's 67 points and was joined by teammate Admiral Schofield as the only Vols in double-figures. It was a thing of beauty to watch as Williams simply carved up the Gators inside.

Alright, so I was wrong about Williams and the Vols too. I am pleasantly surprised as to how good this Tennessee team actually is, though they're probably not playing as well now as they were in the early part of the season. That could change and very likely will change by the time the post season gets here. Tennessee has padded it's hold on second place in the SEC behind front-running Auburn, and considering the first four seeds in the league get a first round bye in the tournament that's a big deal. The Vols haven't won an SEC Tournament since 1979, the first year the league brought the post-season tournament back into play. Don't be surprised if Tennessee wins it all in St. Louis next month. They're good enough to do just that and I know I'm correct about that; I think.