My literary contributors have been heavily invested in the NCAA tournament. And some of them have questions about what they have observed.
Dave still hasn’t figured out why the Lady Vols fired Kellie Harper. Colorado Mark and James are trying to figure out when college basketball became a hard-contact sport.
Dave writes: I have never understood why Tennessee fired Kellie Harper. I’d be willing to wager that five years down the road Kim Caldwell’s record will not be any better but I hope it will. Frustrating but only time will tell. Missouri got a good one right there, and she’s one of our VFL’s.
My response: I would take that bet in a heartbeat.
Harper was a popular Lady Vols player and easy to like. So was her predecessor, Holly Warlick. But they didn’t win enough at a school with great tradition in women’s basketball.
Lady Vols fans should be encouraged at how well Caldwell has recruited transfers as well as high school recruits in her first year on the job.
As a head coach, Harper has had success in her mid-major jobs but was fired at NC State and UT. Missouri will be a challenging job.
Joe writes: I read one of your articles on Coach Caldwell written on Feb 19, 2025, l think. Your article was very complimentary of Caldwell, so l was wrong in my earlier assessment. The Hartford, CT, comment was a knee jerk reaction to your prediction of early defeat of the Lady Vols and the winning tradition of the Huskies since the Summit era.
I didn’t attend UT but I have loved and cheered the school’s sports programs since the days of Coaches Johnny Majors and Pat Summit. So, when a sportswriter appears to denigrate an entire team unjustly in my view, I am not too timid to complain.
An overreaction? Maybe so.
My response: As I said, I appreciate overreactions. Don’t ever hesitate to denigrate me or other emailers with or without a factual basis for your criticism.
Terry writes: I agree that our Vols will meet Houston, and I think we go to the Final 4. As far as Joe, maybe he has confused Hartford, Tennessee, with Hartford, Connecticut, after taking a head shot white-water rafting off I-40. He appears to be in terminal concussion protocol.
My response: I once had a flat tire that caused me to spend part of an afternoon in Tennessee’s Hartford. I prefer it to Connecticut’s Hartford – even if I my car is disabled.
Colorado Mark writes: SEC basketball seems to have become some amalgamation of football, rugby, and sometimes basketball. Pushing, shoving, slamming through players to the basket, no charge, no fouls, or rarely.
Then, if you look at how teams play in other smaller conferences and low and behold, it’s actual basketball and not some new version of roller derby minus the skates. Somewhere, Bob Knight is probably just shaking his head and maybe looking for a folding chair.
My response: You probably have gone soft from being away from SEC country so long.
The SEC is a football conference at heart. Credit the conference leaders with finding a way to extend the football season into early April.
If you ever played pick-up basketball, you probably heard someone say: “No blood, no foul.” I watched two SEC games this season in which players were bleeding when they left the court, but no foul was called.
I liked the original “Rollerball” movie (1975) more than Roller Derby. Congrats on becoming the first literary contributor to use “amalgamation” in a sentence.
James writes: Sitting here watching the tourney and trying to figure out what has happened to basketball.
The guard with the ball pushes the defender in the chest so he has room to pass to the center (no foul).
The center then rams into his defender with his shoulder knocking him back a foot or so – not once but twice (no foul).
The defender is standing there with arms straight in the air, and the center jumps into him for a shot. The defender just grazes his elbow with his little finger. Foul, two shots.
Please explain this to me.
My response: I believe college basketball is in a transitional phase. The powers that be, including television executives, obviously would prefer a more physical game.
More contact means more injuries and delays in action, leading to more commercial breaks. I soon expect to see injury tents set up behind team benches. Stretchers will be placed nearby.
As for the “little-finger fouls,” they are called to give the illusion that officials have the game under control.
John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns.
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