Getting There

by Brooks Clark

For the record, there were a couple of moments at first when Vincent Yarbrough looked a little tentative—the way a freshman is supposed to look. Entering a few minutes into UT's exhibition game against the California All-Stars, the 6'7" consensus High School All-American—touted as the No. 3 recruit in the nation last year—hesitated for a microsecond as he relayed several passes around the All-Stars' defense. Then, like a flash of lightning, he streaked open in the corner, took the pass, stepped forward and arched a perfect three. A few minutes later, Yarbrough drove in from the three-point line, dribbling through and over three defenders, twisting gracefully in the air and laying in a Jordanesque finger roll. Oh-kay, went the collective sigh, this guy's the Real Deal.

In all, the freshman from Cleveland, Tennessee, scored 17 points, was named Player of the Game, and grabbed 9 rebounds. "He hits the boards like he's 6'10" or 6'11"," says point guard Tony Harris. And what is Vincent Yarbrough doing here at Tennessee, when there's easy glory to be had up I-75? "Tennessee players always went to Kentucky," he says. "I just kinda felt like changing that." He also wanted to play with his brother, sophomore guard Del Baker, and save their mother some traveling time. Up close, Yarbrough's piercing green eyes, Paul Newman-like features, understated confidence, and articulate manner make him seem less like an actual freshman sensation and more like the guy they send over from Central Casting to play the freshman sensation.

Yarbrough is the Real Deal. And—coming off their first 20-win season in 13 years and first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1989—so are the Volunteers. In the preseason polls they're ranked No. 9, and No. 3 by College Hoops Insider.

If you're just rejoining Tennessee's men's hoops team after a hiatus of despair, we'll catch you up: In this, the second season under gray-haired, self-effacing, gentleman coach/basketball scholar Jerry Green, there's a general feeling of freedom and possibility reminiscent of the Soviet Union after Stalin. "Hey, we're over the Kevin O'Neill thing," says a member of the athletic department.

"The Kevin O'Neill thing" started off in 1994 as a culture shock and more or less bumped along until his abrupt departure not quite two years ago. O'Neill, ever the in-your-face Yankee, never seemed to adjust to being in the land of humility and good manners. He didn't mind committing sacrilege. Early on he decided to yank John Ward's chain, saying the "p" word on the air and once hinting for no reason at all that the Voice of the Vols had been drinking. O'Neill cursed like a New York cabdriver. ("He gets it from his father," explained his mother. "How else would an Irishman express himself?")

On the basketball side, it seemed that O'Neill was perhaps unnecessarily merciless in running off even the well-intentioned players from the Wade Houston era, a couple of whom might have helped him during the Seasons of Wandering in the Wilderness. (Stanley Caldwell missed a couple of practices to stay home with his newborn baby; Ed Gray went on to be among the nation's top scorers at Cal.) Though O'Neill's defenses were solid, his offense was tough to watch.

"With the personnel we had, we didn't feel it was to our advantage to push the ball down the court," explains backup point guard Aaron Green, who persevered through the five-victory season and considers himself a better person for it. "If I have a problem in my life," he explains, "I see myself being able to handle it."

Through it all, O'Neill went about his recruiting with his trademark zeal. (Remember, this is the man who at Arizona once donned a gorilla suit to meet a recruit at the airport and once said his ambition as a recruiter was to walk into a gym and have everyone say, "That asshole's here.") In recent years, the state of Tennessee has had a cycle of good recruits, and although O'Neill lost Ron Mercer to Kentucky (not for lack of effort), he convinced an impressive core to stay in-state.

In his first spring O'Neill signed All-State guards Aaron Green and Brandon Wharton, All-State players from Sweetwater and Nashville, respectively. Then came the Bruise Brothers—6'8" 250-pound forward C.J. Black and 6'10" 255-pound center Charles Hathaway—who were High School All-Americas from Chattanooga and Nashville. O'Neill signed Del Baker, an honorable mention High School All-America guard at Cleveland High, and Tony Harris, a consensus High School All-America point guard from Memphis.

Out of state, O'Neill boated forward Torrey Harris, a 6'10" 245-pound pre-season High School All-America from Sardis, Miss., Rashard Lee, a High School All-America from Durham, N.C., Vegas Davis, an All-Arizona guard in high school whom O'Neill actually recruited on an Indian reservation, and Isiah Victor, 6'9" All-State forward from Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Added up, O'Neill recruited all but one member (Yarbrough) of the current team that's earned such lofty pre-season rankings.

Yet, in March of 1997, even as he stood on the mountaintop and looked down on the Promised Land, O'Neill packed up and took a job with Northwestern. UT searched around in a hurry, made several entreaties, then found Jerry Green, a Southerner who'd taken his Oregon team to the NCAA tournament but was interested in coming home.

Known as a "coach's coach," Green has the tony pedigree of having been an assistant under Roy Williams at Kansas, and he had a temperament that mixed with UT like Ovaltine in milk. He's humble ("Knock on wood," he says, tapping his knuckles against his head, answering a question about the high hopes for this season), with the unpretentious eyes of a man who came up poor, works hard, and has all the right values

Green arrived, persuaded the players on hand to stay and play for him, and successfully re-recruited Tony Harris. Last season, with Harris at point, things began to click. It was also fun to watch—the last two home games of the season drew 22,111 and 19,110 fans respectively. And Green earned Basketball News' Coach of the Year honors. "I figured out that when we came together as a team and played with our best effort," says Green, "we could hold our own with any team in the country." And all that was after the big man, Charles Hathaway, went down with a blood clot, among a handful of injuries to important players.

Now the team is projected to be among the top 10 in the nation.

"The biggest test is going to be living up to all the hype," says Aaron Green.

The line-up is solid and deep:

Harris, an electric ball-handler who made third team Freshman All-America last year, is the point guard. "If he wants to play 40 minutes a game and can play 40 minutes a game, then we'll do that," says Green. "You get better quality when you can give him a rest."

That's the job of Aaron Green, a superhustling senior from Sweetwater. "I'm not as quick as Tony," he says. "But who is?"

Brandon Wharton, the shooting guard, has led the team in scoring and made All-SEC two years in a row. Last year he averaged 15.2 points a game, shooting 43 percent from three-point range. He also led the team in steals, with 42.

At small forward, Rashard Lee, who under O'Neill was under orders never under any circumstances to shoot from behind the three-point line, last season got the Green light and ended up making 41 percent of his threes. And now there's Yarbrough. Quick as a guard, last month he made a 34-inch vertical leap when he had pneumonia and soon after won the dunking contest at Midnight Madness. "He can shoot the ball better than I thought," says an appreciative Aaron Green. Says Tony Harris, "The best part of his game is his garbage baskets. Most of the time freshmen come in kind of lackadaisical or tentative."

Then there are the Big Men.

Power forward C. J. Black led the SEC in blocked shots last year, then won the team's three-point-shooting contest at Midnight Madness.

Hathaway, the center, is back from his frightening experience with a blood clot. Like a chapter from Genesis, a doctor removed one of his ribs to help his blood flow more freely. Recently, he awoke one morning and found his leg swelled up, but apparently he is fine.

UT even has the luxury of depth at the posts, with 6' 10" senior Torrey Harris, a defensive specialist, and 6'9" sophomore Isiah Victor.

With the high pre-season rankings, UT won't take anyone by surprise. "I don't know if they'll scout us," says Jerry Green, "They'll certainly look at some film on us.

"This is a similar team from last year and a different team. If our chemistry is good, this could be a special team. We've got an unselfish group of people, and our success has a lot to do with our team not caring who gets the playing time."

"The man has been around the block a couple of times," says Charles Hathaway. "We paid our dues. If we listen to him and execute, we're going to win some ball games."