Scotty Hopson Is Maturing When Tennessee Needs Him To Most

For most normal teams, the suspension of their best player is enough to torpedo a season once destined for greatness. Not so for Tennessee, however, who continues to win despite the loss of Tyler Smith.

Without Smith, Tennessee has needed other guys to step up. In yesterday’s nail-bitter over Florida, that guy was Scotty Hopson. Hopson came to Tennessee last year with great promise, but his production hasn’t quite caught up to his potential. He averaged just 9.2 points per game last season, just fourth on the team.

However, since the suspension of Smith, Hopson’s stepped his game up. He’s now the team’s leading scorer, and as SB Nation’s Tennessee blog Rocky Top Talk notes, not only did Hopson deliver the game-winning shot, but he did so on a play specifically designed for him.

On his postgame show, Bruce Pearl talked about the decision to put the ball in Hopson’s hands for the game-winning jump shot, a choice made in part because of the way Florida had been playing Wayne Chism. But regardless of the factors that went into that choice, Pearl’s final answer was to give the ball to Hopson.

Teammates, coaches, media and fans have all chimed in on Hopson’s process. We all saw flashes in his freshman season. We all believed that Hopson was the difference between a pre-arrest Tennessee team being good and great. And we all knew that without Tyler Smith, someone else would have to be counted on with the game on the line.

Even Chris Lofton (in a prophetic piece from Mike Griffith today) said as much: “He’s got to be willing to have the outcome of the game on him sometimes.”

Sometime was today, and Hopson delivered.

Some players only start to realize their potential when a key teammate is absent. It’s becoming clear that Scotty Hopson is one of those guys.