Tennessee basketball signee Kennedy Chandler was among 24 elite high school seniors selected as 2021 McDonald’s All-Americans Tuesday.
Due to the pandemic—and for the second year in a row—an actual McDonald’s All-American Game will not take place.
Chandler becomes the 10th Tennessee signee to earn McDonald’s All-American acclaim. And for only the second time in program history, a Vol signee has earned McDonald’s All-American status for three consecutive years.
Current Tennessee freshman Jaden Springer and sophomore Josiah-Jordan James were McDonald’s All-Americans in 2020 and 2019, respectively.
A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Chandler attends Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire, Kansas, and plans to enroll at UT this summer. Earlier this month, the 6-1 guard was named one of 10 semifinalists for the Jersey Mike’s Naismith High School Trophy for Boys Player of the Year award.
A five-star prospect rated by ESPN as the nation’s top point guard in the Class of 2021, Chandler has led the Buffaloes to a 20-2 record this season while playing an elite, national schedule.
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes has now signed 18 McDonald’s All-Americans in his career, including three in his five-plus years with the Vols.
Tennessee’s previous McDonald’s All-American signees were Doug Roth (1985), Allan Houston (1989), Charles Hathaway (1996), Tony Harris (1997), Vincent Yarbrough (1998), Scotty Hopson (2008), Tobias Harris (2010), James (2019) and Springer (2020).
Kellie Harper & Rae Burrell – Lady Vols / Credit: UT Athletics
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee women’s basketball head coach Kellie Harper took questions from the media on Tuesday in a Zoom interview session that covered the Lady Vols’ upcoming games at Missouri (8-9/4-8 SEC) on Thursday and vs. Auburn (5-15, 0-12 SEC) for Sunday’s Senior Day game.
This week’s contests close out the regular season for #20/21 UT (13-6, 7-4 SEC), with the SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C., to follow on March 3-7 at Bon Secours Wellness Arena.
On what Missouri does well and what they have to be ready for on Thursday:
“Obviously, Missouri’s offense relies heavily on their ability to shoot the basketball, and their spacing is great. The other thing you can always count on, and I think you see it, they improve in this area all year in that they are really intelligent. So, whatever defensive game plan they have, they will execute it. And they can give you a variety of looks, because their kids are pretty savvy. They’re also really tough. They’re just tough, and they are going to make hustle plays all night. They’re going to know what they need to do to be successful. So, I think matchup-wise, they can pose some problems, because they can play five perimeter players.”
On how Rennia Davis has performed the last two games:
“Well, Rennia was able to, in our South Carolina game, be a go-to player in that second half. We got her the basketball. She was feeling good, knocking down shots, making plays. (She) really got us back ahead and pushed us over the top. At Georgia, when we were stagnant early, she was one of the players actually making some shots. It wasn’t easy. People were keying in on her and trying to make things tough for her, but I love to see that she is still able to find ways to be successful and be productive.”
On how much she focuses on the assist to turnover statistic and if she thinks it helps determine the outcome of a game, considering the assist to turnover ratio was 3 to 20 against Georgia:
“Well, you don’t want to see that number. Obviously, I think that’s a number that doesn’t scream success. That’s how Georgia plays, and they take you out of assists a lot of times and make you play one on one. And they’re a tough matchup for us because they do have good size and a physicality in the paint, but their guards just get down and guard. They are really good defensively, and obviously, that caused problems for us. To start the game, we had some opportunities to knock down some easy shots, and we just missed them; they rimmed out. You’ve got to be able to find ways to be productive. And as poorly as we played, we still had a chance at the end. I don’t want to discredit what Georgia did though, because I think their game plan was really solid.”
On what the seniors have meant to her:
“I group them in a couple different categories. Obviously, with Jaiden (McCoy), we brought her in and due to injuries, it’s been unfortunate that she’s not been able to be on the court as much as we had hoped. For Kasi (Kushkituah) and Rennia (Davis), just to see their growth in the small time that we had them has been really fun. I love all three of them, and I think they all have different personalities. They’ve been fun to be around, and I’m proud of where they have helped this team go. If you’re missing that senior leadership and missing that senior experience really pulling strongly, it’s a big piece, and obviously, that’s been really important to our team.”
On Keyen Green’s status for the rest of the season and eligibly moving forward:
“Obviously, with COVID and extra years, there are so many variables right now. We don’t want to make decisions about those types of things until after the season is over, except for Keyen. She’s in a different position. We knew she wasn’t going to have another opportunity to play this year, so we’ve had those discussions. As of right now, we are excited because she plans to come back next year.”
On what she expects her team to fix in the last two regular season games of the year heading into the SEC Tournament:
“We are hoping for good weather, good travel, and an opportunity to practice. I think that is as important for us right now as anything. We are excited about taking the court today and trying to really work on Tennessee rather than another team. I really feel like we’ve been focused on our opponents for the last couple weeks more so than us, so I’m excited we’ll get to work on us. Then, we’ll turn to Missouri tomorrow. What I’d like to see is for us to clean up some of the things that we need to do, some of the things we’ve gotten away from in the couple weeks that could make us a better basketball team if we can get a little more consistent. Some of that is on the defensive end, and some of it is on the offensive end. Before you go to the tournament, you want to make sure you’re cleaning up anything. You want to make sure if there is something that really stands out, that you’re working on that. At some point, between now and the tournament, we’ve got to worry about Missouri and Auburn. But before the tournament, you want to go through everything you’ve got in your arsenal. You want to review every defense you have, every offensive play, every thought you could possibly have, because you go over to Greenville and to the SEC tournament, you’ve got to pull out all the stops. You have to make sure your team is ready.”
On how Tamari Key can avoid fouls called against her and how those calls affect her play:
“I think early on this season, you could see her having some frustration fouls. Now, I think she’s learned that her worth is greater than maybe a cheap foul. She’s really worked on that. I think it’s an area that we need to emphasize. We can’t control everything, so we can’t control what is called and what’s not called. What we can control is our actions and trying to keep ourselves as clean as possible, in terms of foul trouble. We have to be able to control that, whatever is called, we can play out of it and not let frustration set in.”
On whether Coach Harper can tell before a game if her team is ready to play:
“No, but let me back up let me actually answer that. I usually have a pretty good idea, and this year I have felt like we have been ready to play just about every game. I did feel like our practice on Saturday was not great leading up to our Georgia game. We usually have really good practices, but I thought that Saturday practice was not one of those good ones. I thought that hurt us a little bit and then the fact that we didn’t get a shoot-around (Sunday morning) because of a noon game and four-and-a-half-hour bus ride. There was not a whole lot going in our favor going into this weekend, so as a Coach I am trying to figure out the right balance of moving on from this game versus learning from this game and figuring out what we need to be better at.”
On what she thinks about the team’s destiny, regarding SEC Tournament standings, being in their own hands going into this last week of regular season play:
“Yeah, so I think that is going to be something that we talk about today at practice. We were off yesterday, and that will be an area that we want to make sure we all understand what that means. Sometimes you can talk about it, but players don’t understand what that actually means. So we will be very specific about that, and you know one of the things I have talked to them about in the past is you want to be in a position to have some control. And when you are in a situation where hoping certain teams win so that the seeding falls a certain way it is just not a good place to be in. It does not feel good when you are hoping something else happens that you literally have no control over. So I think that we have to focus on what we can control while understanding the big picture but also take practice today and be the best we can be today. We have got to find a way to get better today, and then tomorrow we have to be prepared to play Missouri on Thursday, so I think every day there is a goal within the big picture.”
On how Coach Harper expects her point guards to bounce back on Thursday and how much she is putting a focus on getting point guard play back to the standard she expects:
“Well, the one thing that I will go back to is that all season long our team has bounced back. And I have been really proud of not just those particular players, but everybody has really bounced back after a loss. I think this one was pretty frustrating at Georgia, and I think this one is gonna be a big challenge for our team to bounce back from. So we will find out pretty quick what state of mind they are in. It’s not anything that we have to do differently, it’s literally going out and doing the things we have done all season long. For us, it is not an overly complicated game plan to just watch our team play and see where we are at. Like I said, I think the practice will be good for a lot of players and continue to give us confidence about what we need to do.”
Scotty McCreery spent a little me time in a very cold pool this week.
He made the Polar “Plunge in Place” as a part of the campaign to supported Special Olympics North Carolina. Scotty McCreery has been encouraging fans to join “Team Scotty” and make a donation, with the payoff of watching him get a cold soaking.
Scotty says, “Brrr! The water in that pool was under 40 degrees and COLD but it’s worth doing to support and bring attention to Special Olympics North Carolina and the work they do with more than 40,000 athletes.”
As you watch the video though you’ll notice Scotty doesn’t go it alone…his faithful best-friend Moose also makes the leap!
Fans watching Scotty’s plunge can still join “Team Scotty” if they haven’t already. You can make a donation to Special Olympics North Carolina this week at https://www.classy.org/team/338961
We’re pretty sure after the cold dip in the pool Scotty McCreery spent some “You Time” with a heater…
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee forward Rennia Davis was named SEC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week on Tuesday, marking the second time this season and sixth time in her career she has earned that distinction.
That’s the most career player of the week honors by any active league women’s basketball student-athlete and ties her with Chelsea Dungee of Arkansas and Aliyah Boston of South Carolina for most POTW accolades this season.
Davis averaged 23.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 1.0 assists last week, posting back-to-back 20-point scoring efforts and running her string to three consecutive games with 20 points or more. The 6-foot-2 senior shot 44.8 percent from the field, including 44.4 percent on threes, and was 16 of 18 from the free-throw line for 88.9 percent in games vs. #2/3 South Carolina and #22/23 Georgia.
Davis fired in a game-high 24 points and recorded her seventh double-double of the season with 12 rebounds as the Lady Vols beat the highest ranked team since 2017 in the 75-67 defeat of the Gamecocks. The victory snapped a 31-game SEC winning streak by South Carolina. The double-double tied Davis for fourth all-time in school history, with her 36 career efforts matching Glory Johnson. In that contest, vs. USC, Davis fired in all 24 of her points in the second half, going 6 of 8 from the field and 10 of 10 from the charity stripe as UT erased deficits of 16 in the second quarter, 12 at the half and 15 in the third quarter. Davis posted 11 of her points in the final stanza, nearly outscoring the Gamecocks’ 13 all by herself.
Against Georgia, Davis again led the UT charge, knocking down 23 and pulling down six boards in a tightly-contested affair. Ten of her points came in the second half, with eight part of UT’s fourth-quarter comeback that came up just short against perhaps the league’s top defensive team.
Davis is now averaging 19.1 ppg. and 9.3 rpg. vs. SEC foes and 20.3 ppg. and 11.8 rpg. against ranked teams after last week’s contests.
The Lady Vols are back in action on Thursday, as they travel to Missouri to face the Tigers at 8 p.m. ET (7 CT) in a contest streamed on SECN+.
Niko Moon is having a little social media fun with his GOOD TIME THIS OR THAT.
With the message “What do you think? Do y’all agree with me?!” Niko posted a video where he veered left or right depending on the options…like, Bonfire or Campfire? Apple Pie Moonshine or Clear? Acoustic Guitar or Electric? Fishing on a Boat or a Dock?
To find out the answers to these very important questions, just watch this video…
Maddie & Tae are now on TikTok…we found out about this on Facebook.
They posted a cool video, made by Tae, covering some of the highlights of their career from the last decade…but most importantly, they shared that they are back in the studio working on new music!
“Beers and Sunshine” was a first for Darius Rucker — it is the first “socially distanced” created song of his career…but now it’s also a 10th for him too.
“Beers and Sunshine” just became his 10th number-one country song!
With everything that went into making the track happen, Darius knew there was something special about it, and it was just the right time to have it out for fans, “I really thought the song, especially right now in the winter and with everything that’s going on, it was just such an upbeat song, a happy song, and I thought people would resonate with it and eventually they did. And that was really cool.”
Darius adds, “That one was also the first song that I had ever done that was all recorded over the internet too, so that was pretty cool. It was just one of those things, it was early in the pandemic and we were already like, ‘Is it really going to be like this? Is this what it’s gonna be like?’ (laughs) And that’s what it was like though, but I love that song.”
This Friday, February 26th, Darius will be heading to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville where NBC News’ Today will broadcast him playing the newly minted number-one country song.
Until then, you can watch Darius Rucker in the music video for his “Beers and Sunshine” right here…
After years of working together on writing songs Ryan Hurd and Maren Morris have finally recorded a duet, “Chasing After You.” The bit of irony for this country star couple is that after those years of writing song after song — neither of them wrote it…which Ryan jokes that should prove that they really do love the song.
Ryan & Maren share the story behind “Chasing After You”…
Check out the music video for “Chasing After You” right here…
Ingrid Andress is one of the hottest rising female singers in country music. While she hasn’t been able to tour over the past year, she has made many notable national TV appearances…that has made her even more recognizable than the was before.
Ingrid does recall a time, before quarantine, when she out and did get recognized by a fan…“I had just done a workout class, and showered, had my hair up, didn’t have any make-up on, I was looking at sweaters or something. This mom came up to me and was like ‘Are you Ingrid Andress?’…I’m like mid-sweater pick, and I’m just like, ‘Yes.’ My immediate thought was ‘I’ve done something wrong.’ She was like ‘I just want you to know that I really like your music.’ I was like ‘Oh, oh my gosh, thank you so much.” Then I pretty sure she looked at the sweater I was holding and kind of gave it a weird look, like ‘You shouldn’t get that’ and then walked away. I was like ‘OK, I feel appreciated and judged at the same time’.”
No judging here–only appreciation…
Check out Ingrid Andress’ music video for her “Lady Like” right here…
