Category Archives: Basketball

Elite Eight & Everyday Privilege

We don’t have many Elite Eight reflexes, but one thing I do remember from 14 years ago: this day between is strange. There is so very much to celebrate, so much uncharted territory. But also, in around 24 hours – a short amount of time, considering it took 31284710 hours for Friday night’s game to get here – Tennessee can do even more. For the very very first time.

Saturday is this balance between static and dynamic. Some things just are, safely are. Tennessee is in its second ever Elite Eight. Rick Barnes is in his fourth. This 2024 team will end its season in either Detroit or Phoenix with the best resume we’ve ever seen in Knoxville: an outright SEC title in a loaded league, tied for the program’s highest ever seed, now through to where only one team before – a six seed, in one of the wildest roller coaster seasons in any sport on this campus – has played.

They did so with no help from the bracket. When the Vols lost to nine seed Florida Atlantic in the Sweet 16 last season, it felt like a huge missed opportunity…but that path to the Final Four would’ve actually been Tennessee’s third-toughest. Among Vol squads with a real chance to advance – didn’t lose in the first round, didn’t get blown out in any round, etc. – only two faced more difficult paths by total seed count: the 2019 group, which went 15-10-3 and would’ve faced top seed Virginia had it gone differently against, you know, Purdue…and the 2007 group, which went chalk as a five seed against 12-4-1 and would’ve faced two seed Memphis. (The 2008 squad would’ve also faced chalk, but lost to three seed Louisville by 19 in the Sweet 16).

So among teams with what feels like a real chance to make the Final Four, only that 2007 group had a more difficult path than this one. This Tennessee team is now as far as anyone has ever gone here, from a seed as good as anyone has ever earned here, on a path as tough as anyone has ever faced here. Sharpie.

It’s only top seed Purdue next: the Boilermakers would be the fifth best team Tennessee ever beat in the KenPom era (behind 2019 Gonzaga, 2010 Kansas, 2008 Memphis, 2013 Florida). This year’s Auburn squad is currently number seven on that list behind the two Florida title teams in 2006 & 2007.

It’s Purdue in Detroit; the Vols will wear the orange jerseys. In them, they became the first team in school history to beat three ranked teams on the road. In them, they lost to Purdue in Maui by four points. In Maui, Dalton Knecht’s season high was 24 points. And in Maui, Zakai Zeigler played 28 minutes, off the bench.

You heard it from the man himself last night: they’re better.

But we’re better too.

Whatever comes next, it’s a privilege to be this far. But the real privilege, of course, is ours: not just to enjoy today and then buckle up again tomorrow, but to be fans of this team and this program. Something we’ve said a lot in football the past couple of years, in the language of a program finding itself again, is still true for a program now that has now found itself as seeds of three, two, five, three, four, and two in the last six NCAA Tournaments. Championships and uncharted territory are of course the goal. But the everyday privilege is being in the conversation. You don’t win every night or every year; we all know 98.4% of the teams in your bracket won’t end their run victorious. But this team and this program are in that hunt every single season. It is both a gift and by no means easy. It’s a joy, and a privilege.

We have somewhere between one and three nights left to watch this team. Enjoy every possession.

This season is a gift. Again.

And we’re not done yet.

Go Vols.

Vols with 30+ Points in Wins vs Ranked Teams

The most jarring thing to happen last night that didn’t involve Dalton Knecht was the “Bruce Pearl, 10th season at Auburn” graphic. Which can’t be right, but I’m getting ready to throw a lot of research at you from ESPN’s website, so let’s trust the process. It doesn’t feel that way because, like Rick Barnes at Tennessee, it took a second to get going like this. Pearl’s first two Auburn teams went 9-27 in SEC play, then an 18-14 campaign, then six NCAA Tournament teams in seven seasons, five of them seeded five or higher (assuming the 2020 group would’ve gotten there and this one will too), and one Final Four.

Rick Barnes’ first two teams went 18-22 in SEC play, and the 2020 squad was bubble centric. Which makes for the same six NCAA Tournament teams in seven seasons, all of them seeded five or higher.

Auburn is in the midst of unprecedented basketball success. Tennessee walked that same road with Pearl in the past, and is now living its best life again with Barnes. In the short and long term, both of these programs have much to be grateful for, and so many good memories made.

And in the midst of all that last night was Knecht, the architect of maybe the best individual performance I’ve ever seen at Tennessee, on a team that is right there to earn the program’s first ever one seed.

A mere 17 (!!!) years ago, when it was Pearl on our sideline, we had a guy named Chris Lofton, ever heard of him? And one of my favorite talking points was how Lofton’s very best performance was overshadowed by his very best individual shot. On December 23, 2006, Lofton hit that bomb over Kevin Durant. Rick Barnes was there too! The Vols completed a wild comeback and took down Texas 111-105 in overtime. It was a volume day: Durant had 26 points on 22 shots, Lofton 35 on just 8-of-24 from the field.

But seventeen days earlier, a ranked Memphis squad rolled into town. And Lofton did this in the first half:

(This grainy footage makes me feel so old to realize I was 25 years old when it was taken and not, you know, two.)

Lofton almost outscored Memphis in the first half, falling a point behind 22-21. He did it in every way imaginable, which sounds very familiar from last night. He added 13 more in the second half to finish with 34 points on 18 shots, 6-of-11 from three, and the Vols crushed #17 Memphis 76-58.

The Durant legend grew, appropriately. That Memphis team ended up a two seed in the Elite Eight, setting the stage for an even bigger showdown between the Vols and Tigers the following season.

The shot and the guy he shot it over makes the Texas memory the winner. But for an overall performance – the best you’ve ever seen anyone play wearing orange – Lofton vs Memphis was still my pick.

A mere five years ago, Admiral Schofield and the Vols went to the desert to face #1 Gonzaga – one of many favorable trips to Arizona for this athletic department, which is good news with the Final Four in Phoenix. Schofield had 30 points, 25 in the second half, and Tennessee won an absolute thriller 76-73.

At the time, we called it the best individual performance since Chris Lofton was around. Those Vols went on to spend a month at number one. That Gonzaga team is still the best Tennessee has ever beaten by way of KenPom.

And a mere 24 hours ago, Dalton Knecht vs #11 Auburn.

What I love about all three of these: the color commentator can’t help himself. Jimmy Dykes saw both Lofton and Knecht last night in Knoxville. Sean Farnham with the “stop it!” for Schofield against Gonzaga. It’s better than speechless.

Knecht scored 25 points in the final 12 minutes, outscoring the Tigers over that stretch to turn an eight-point deficit into an eight-point win. Shout out to Santiago Vescovi, who didn’t score all night, then made every basketball coach on the face of the earth smile by grabbing an offensive rebound and putting Knecht’s final shot back in to put the game away.

We’ve seen Knecht go for 30 and 35+ plenty at this point. And we’re used to talking about things in post-Lofton language, a guy so good he deserved his own category. The Ernie & Bernie stuff is even grainier footage, it’s before my time. Allan Houston was a monster when I was a kid, but his teams weren’t able to rise to the level of the ones Lofton, Schofield, and Knecht were surrounded by.

But what Knecht did last night isn’t just good for post-Lofton. It might be as good as anything anyone, Lofton included, has done here.

So, how do we quantify these kind of performances? Turns out, just from starting with these three and working back through ESPN’s website…they pretty much stand on their own.

A shout out to Kevin Punter’s 36 points against #24 South Carolina in 2016, Barnes’ first season. That one joins these:

  • Chris Lofton 34 points vs #17 Memphis (12-of-18, 6-of-11 3PT)
  • Kevin Punter 36 points vs #24 South Carolina (8-of-16, 6-of-11 3PT)
  • Admiral Schofield 30 points vs #1 Gonzaga (12-of-22, 6-of-10 3PT)
  • Dalton Knecht 39 points vs #11 Auburn (12-of-21, 5-of-8 3PT)

…as the only Vols to score 30+ points in a win over a ranked team from Bruce Pearl through Rick Barnes.

This is rare stuff, friends.

Enjoy every possession.

Go Vols.

Julian Phillips Continues the Expectation at Tennessee

Outgoing freshman Julian Phillips saw his decision to enter the NBA Draft pay off as an early second round pick last night, #35 to your Chicago Bulls. The headline for Tennessee, of course, is Phillips makes seven Vols drafted in the last five years:

  • 2023: Julian Phillips, Round 2 #35 Chicago
  • 2022: Kennedy Chandler, Round 2 #38 Memphis
  • 2021: Keon Johnson, Round 1 #21 LA Clippers
  • 2021: Jaden Springer, Round 1 #28 Philadelphia
  • 2019: Grant Williams, Round 1 #22 Boston
  • 2019: Admiral Schofield, Round 2 #42 Washington
  • 2019: Jordan Bone, Round 2 #57 Detroit

For context, it took 18 years for Tennessee’s previous seven draft picks before the Rick Barnes era. That span is an even longer 24 years if you remove Ed Gray (drafted in 1997 after transferring to Cal), and consider the Vols had no one drafted for three years after Josh Richardson in 2015, or two years after Allan Houston in 1993. Tennessee also had no one drafted from 2003-2010 (though C.J. Watson turned out a really nice career in that span as an undrafted player).

Barnes had 17 played drafted at Texas in 17 years, a run that included only Myles Turner in his last four seasons in Austin. So the Vols are ahead on a players-drafted-per-year standpoint on the whole. The primary difference there is lottery picks: Barnes had five Top 10 picks in his time at Texas, including future all-stars LaMarcus Aldridge and Kevin Durant.

That group helped Texas make the Sweet 16 five times in seven years from 2002-2008, including a Final Four now 20 years ago. Possession for possession, Barnes’ best teams at Tennessee continue to be on par with his best teams at Texas. We looked at this when Tennessee was knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by Michigan in 2022: the Vols’ 2019 squad (with three draft picks of its own) is still Barnes’ best ever in terms of KenPom. The 2022 and 2023 squads join them in making up three of his top six over his entire career. And, as is the nature of the beast sometimes, his Final Four team at Texas in 2003 is just his seventh-best team overall in KenPom. That team earned a number one seed, something that has still eluded Tennessee overall. They did a good job navigating their bracket in the first three rounds, beating a 16, 9, and 5 seed before catching (and beating) 7-seed Michigan State in the Elite Eight.

I don’t know if lottery picks are in Tennessee’s future or even part of their desired master plan; that trajectory changed at the end of Barnes’ time at Texas, but the possession-for-possession strength of his teams has not declined at Tennessee. Meanwhile, the Vols are entering an entirely new category when it comes to the NBA Draft: a regular expectation of players drafted every year, as part of teams that position themselves as Top 4 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. And Tennessee has also done this with some of their most important players during this stretch – John Fulkerson, Yves Pons, etc. – going undrafted.

The Vols are third in Bart Torvik’s 2024 early projections and a two seed in ESPN’s 2024 bracketology. As with everything else on campus these days, Tennessee is in the hunt, and doing so as consistently in basketball as it has ever been done here.

A look at the Vols’ recent history with transfers

The transfer portal is all the rage nowadays in college sports, especially in basketball. I think fans follow transfers more closely than they do recruiting now, at least based off the interactions and discussion I’ve seen online.

In this era of player freedom, the impact of transfers is under even more scrutiny than ever before. That seems especially true for Tennessee and a fanbase that hasn’t seen a true major-impact transfer in…well, quite some time.

This offseason, Rick Barnes has done something he’s never done at Tennessee: He’s brought in more than one transfer who can play immediately. USC Upstate guard Jordan Gainey, Harvard wing/forward Chris Ledlum, and Northern Colorado guard Dalton Knecht have all three announced their intentions to transfer to the Vols, marking the first time Barnes has added multiple transfers in the same offseason with the expectation of them playing the following season. Prior to the 2019-20 campaign, Barnes and his staff landed Victor Bailey Jr. from Oregon and Uros Plavsic from Arizona State, but Bailey redshirted his first year on campus, and Plavsic didn’t get to play till midseason as he fought for eligibility.

How Gainey, Ledlum, and Knecht will perform for the Vols remains to be seen, but there’s hope that all three can fill holes on Tennessee’s roster for the upcoming season, particularly Knecht.

But based on the Vols’ recent history with transfers, it’s understandable if fans’ expectations are low for UT’s newest additions.

I looked back over the last 20 years to see what kind of impact transfers have made for Tennessee’s men’s basketball program. I looked exclusively at transfers from one college to another, whether they were multi-year transfers or grad transfers. I didn’t include JUCO transfers or walk-on transfers just to simplify things, so someone like Josh Bone wasn’t included in this research.

The results backed up what I suspected: Tennessee has had some really bad luck with transfers over the last couple decades, and it’s only been more glaring over the last 5-8 years.

Starting with Jemere Hendrix in 2003 all the way to Tyreke Key this past season, the list of transfers into Tennessee’s basketball program is a rollercoaster of production. For the first decade or so of this millennium, the Vols actually had a pretty good run with who they brought in as transfers. Scooter McFadgon was an exceptional scorer on some bad Tennessee teams, and Andre Patterson was a solid contributor for his two seasons, especially in his one year under Bruce Pearl.

Speaking of Pearl, he also brought in J.P. Prince, who was instrumental in Tennessee’s 2010 Elite Eight run and was a consistent third option on the offensive end. He also nabbed Tyler Smith, who was on his way to possibly being the best transfer in Vols’ history until he was kicked off the team after his arrest. Pearl also got Jeronne Maymon to come to Tennessee from Marquette, but Maymon’s impact wasn’t felt until Cuonzo Martin took over as head coach. Maymon and Jarnell Stokes were a one-two punch in the post for multiple years, and both gobbled up rebounds like machines.

Martin also reeled in Antonio Barton from Memphis, and he was a serviceable point guard who played a larger role than fans may remember in that 2013-14 season when UT went on a surprising Sweet Sixteen run.

After Barton, though, things have become…less memorable on the transfer front.

Donnie Tyndall had to completely remake Tennessee’s roster in his one and only season, and his two transfers amounted to very little on the court. Dominic Woodson played in a handful of games before deciding to leave the program, and Ian Chiles barely got to play before suffering a season-ending injury.

Then came Rick Barnes.

Barnes’ luck with transfers at Tennessee has been poor, to say the least. In Barnes’ first few years at the helm, he brought in Lew Evans, who wasn’t much more than a depth piece, and James Daniel III, who was a good three-point shooter but never could return to form from his time at Howard.

Then came Uros Plavsic and Victory Bailey Jr. in the same offseason. Plavsic is still on Tennessee’s roster as of now and has actually played more games than any other incoming transfer at Tennessee over the last 20 years. But his play is probably best described as “sporadic,” and he has failed to be as impressive on the boards as most would like. As for Bailey, his first season after redshirting was pretty solid, averaging almost nine points a game while connecting on almost 34% of his threes. His production fell off a cliff in his second season, though, and he left the program and followed Kim English to George Mason after that.

Following those two additions was E.J. Anosike, who might be the most disappointing transfer for the Vols in the last 20 years, if not longer. Justin Powell transferred from Auburn the next offseason and showed some promise as a three-point shooter, but he never saw a lot of minutes and didn’t thrive in Knoxville.

And that brings us to Tyreke Key, who transferred from Indiana State for this past season.

This may surprise you, but Key may actually be Barnes’ best transfer addition to date at Tennessee. Which says more about Barnes’ luck with transfers than it does Key’s production with the Vols.

Now, unlike a lot of people, I’m not going to sit here and trash Key. I think he got a lot of undue hate tossed his way, and while his play deserved criticism, I believe some went over the top with it and either didn’t know, forgot, or willfully ignored the fact that he was coming off shoulder surgery and missed the entire 2021-22 season at Indiana State and was asked to play out of position a good chunk of this past season due to injuries to Tennessee’s roster.

Anyway.

Key finished the year averaging just over eight points, 2.5 rebounds, and 1.3 assists while making 33.3% of his threes. Nothing stellar there at all, but he made some good contributions, albeit with a lot of inconsistency.

The fact that Key is probably Tennessee’s best transfer in the last 9-10 years says a lot about the production the Vols have gotten from transfers recently, though. And it makes sense why fans would question just how good a transfer can be at Tennessee under Barnes.

Personally, I think someone like Ledlum is the exact type of player who can thrive with Barnes, even though there definitely will be a regression with his numbers considering he’s jumping from the Ivy League to the SEC. And I think Knecht will play a vital role on the team next season and could be the perfect versatile scoring threat the Vols have lacked the last few years.

Only time will tell if my suspicions about Ledlum and Knecht are true, and both have a lot of years’ worth of bad transfer juju to overcome for fans to get more on board.

Both of those players, and Gainey, all have something in common: They’re transferring to Tennessee from a “smaller” school in a non-high major conference. That’s been the trend under Barnes, too. He’s mainly grabbed players from mid-majors to come to Knoxville, and only three of the transfers he’s brought in have been from other Power Six programs (Uros Plavsic, Victor Bailey Jr., and Justin Powell).

From the 2003-04 season to the 2014-15 season, only two of Tennessee’s 10 transfers were from mid-major schools. The Vols scored three scholarship transfers from Memphis in that span (Scooter McFadgon, Antonio Barton, and Dominic Woodson), and the other five were from other Power Six conferences. Only John Fields (UNC Wilmington) and Ian Chiles (IUPUI) were from smaller schools.

All that isn’t to say that you have to come from a Power Six conference to have success at Tennessee as a transfer, but so far those have been the most accomplished transfers into Knoxville this millennium.

Here’s a full look at the stats of Tennessee’s transfers over the last 20 years:

PlayerPrev SchoolGamesMinsPPGRPGAPGFG%3FG%FT%
Jemere HendrixClemson5718.44.84.50.451.8%N/A68.4%
Scooter McFadgonMemphis5430.816.04.21.939.3%35.9%87.9%
Andre PattersonUCLA6124.98.46.41.451.6%22.2%63.4%
JP PrinceArizona9523.79.43.72.753.6%22.5%60.4%
Tyler SmithIowa8229.814.96.03.449.0%30.9%73.4%
John FieldsUNC Wilmington3411.62.63.00.258.7%N/A46.4%
Jeronne MaymonMarquette8425.09.77.21.054.2%N/A64.6%
Antonio BartonMemphis3725.17.52.22.137.3%34.0%68.9%
Dominic WoodsonMemphis412.03.52.00.350.0%N/A33.3%
Ian ChilesIUPUI34.70.70.70.350.0%N/AN/A
Lew EvansUtah State3214.83.42.80.934.5%29.5%68.5%
James Daniel IIIHoward3519.75.61.42.836.6%37.2%72.7%
Uros PlavsicArizona State10111.33.72.80.557.3%N/A47.0%
Victor Bailey Jr.Oregon6116.36.21.41.038.5%30.4%77.5%
EJ AnosikeSacred Heart228.51.71.90.334.2%N/A60%
Justin PowellAuburn3014.13.71.50.739.2%38.1%73.3%
Tyreke KeyIndiana State3324.48.22.51.334.0%33.3%74.1%

How good do you have to be on the other side of the ball?

In basketball, Tennessee just finished as the number one defense in KenPom, their third consecutive Top 5 finish there. Outside of how the 2023 Vols looked night-to-night due to injuries, the real question there was about the gap between offensive and defensive efficiency. How good do these teams need to be offensively when they’re this good on defense? The Vols were undefeated when holding teams under 60 points, but what about beyond that?

If you look at Tennessee’s NCAA Tournament teams, you’ll find the search for balance can run both ways:

Tennessee NCAA Tournament Teams in KenPom Rank

YearOffenseDefenseDifference
202364163
202235332
202185580
201934239
201836630
201415194
2011904347
2010751164
2009208363
2008152813
2007225533
200687264

Obviously a small total in the difference column by itself doesn’t tell you much; you could be bad at both and do that. But a few things that jump out to me here:

  • The biggest gap is the covid season, which was also the Rick Barnes team that relied most on true freshmen – not a huge surprise
  • Note how a couple of these teams flipped their strength with much of the same roster: the 2009 and 2010 seasons went from offense-first to defense-first, then in 2018 and 2019 the Vols did the opposite
  • In these 12 seasons, the Vols were strongest on the offensive side five times, and on the defensive side seven times. Barnes’ teams tend to lean defense, Pearl’s teams started offense-first but shifted the other way his last two years. And while Cuonzo’s first season in 2012 featured an offense rated 106th, by his last season here in 2014 the Vols were incredibly balanced.

So, the question: when you’re so good at the one, how good do you need to be at the other?

At Virginia, it took Tony Bennett four seasons to make the NCAA Tournament. When they did as a 10-seed in 2012, the Cavs finished fifth in KenPom defense and 133rd in offense. Two years later, UVA arrived on the national scene as a one-seed. They were fourth in defense…and 27th in offense. In their run from 2014 through the 2019 national championship, they had a Top 10 defense every year…but only once finished outside the Top 30 in offense. So while the first-pass impression was always about their defense, their offense was plenty good enough. Those six seasons led to three Sweet 16s, two Elite 8s, one loss to a 16 seed…and a national championship.

For Tennessee, I’m sure the first impression will always be defense first. And, even in a time when offense tends to lead for national champions, I’m more than okay with defense being first when the defense is this good. You just need the other part to be…”good enough”? I think Barnes and all these guys would tell you just “enough” isn’t what they’re going for. You need a group you can have some confidence in on the other end of the floor.

You know me, we’re all about that intersection of feelings and data: when we look at the KenPom list, the teams you felt best about had a good balance to them. Teams that were in the Top 50 in both categories include 2018, 2019, and 2022 under Barnes. With Pearl, the 2008 team hit that benchmark, while the 2010 team was playing at that level once back to full strength. I would imagine the same would go for the 2007 squad if you removed the games Chris Lofton missed with an ankle injury.

Who in the world knows exactly what next season’s roster will look like yet. But I appreciate Bart Torvik’s site for having fun anyway with early 2024 projections. That’s where you’ll again find the Vols projected to have the best defense in the land, and an offense rated 69th. (Torvik had the Vols at 57th offensively this past season.) How good is good enough? How much confidence will next season’s team instill on the offensive side of the ball.

Speaking of good enough:

Tennessee Bowl Eligible Teams in SP+ Rank

YearOffenseDefenseDifference
202223028
202174740
2019731954
2016154429
2015311318
2014532330
201044484
2009291712
2007173316
2006123319

On the eve of the Orange & White Game, you’ll note that the 2023 SP+ projections pick the Vols to finish second in offense and 32nd in defense, an almost identical finish to last year.

When your offense is this good, how good is good enough defensively? And likewise, I’m sure Josh Heupel, Tim Banks, and all these guys are interested in much more than just “enough”. In SP+, you’ll note that last year’s defense, South Carolina included and all that, still finished stronger on the season than some of the “If we only had a little better defense!” groups from 2016 or 2007. They weren’t bad, by any stretch of the imagination; I would say a Top 30 unit, especially coming from one that finished 47th the year before, is drifting toward the “good” department.

Will it get there this fall? There are plenty of questions on the other side of the ball, starting with, “Can Tennessee still have one of the two best offenses in the nation after saying goodbye to all these early round draft picks?”.

But I think the best news for Tennessee, in both sports, is the way we’re in the neighborhood of having the right kind of excellence on both sides of the ball. We felt it in basketball in the 2022 season. And we could be one step closer to seeing it take place in football this fall.

Go Vols.

Tennessee’s Modern Era Continues in the NBA Playoffs

Last year, we looked at the rise of the modern era for Tennessee basketball in the NBA. In particular, the Vols aren’t just getting more players into the league, but more opportunities for the spotlight in the playoffs. And that continues this week:

  • Josh Richardson and New Orleans are in the play-in round tomorrow night, where they’ll need to beat Oklahoma City and then either the Lakers or Timberwolves to advance to the bracket.
  • Grant Williams played a career-high 26 minutes per game for the Celtics in the regular season, with Boston the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference…
  • …where Tobias Harris and the Sixers could be waiting in Round 2 as the #3 seed. Harris, now in his 12th season in the league, averaged 15 points per game in the regular season.

There are others in the league, and hopefully more on the way. But these three carry the banner, one from each of our last three tournament coaches. And all three have an opportunity to move up on a select list of former Vols:

Most NBA Playoff Games Played for Former Vols

  1. Dale Ellis (73)
  2. Allan Houston (63)
  3. C.J. Watson (48)
  4. Grant Williams (46)
  5. Tobias Harris (44)
  6. Ernie Grunfeld (42)
  7. Tom Boerwinckle (35)
  8. Josh Richardson (30)

We noted last year how longevity and individual excellence are no guarantees for success: Bernard King is next on that list with just 28 career playoff appearances. If healthy, both Williams and Harris will pass C.J. Watson in about two weeks. And if the Celtics and Sixers advance – guaranteeing one of them makes the Eastern Conference Finals – they could pass Allan Houston this season.

For Tobias, 40 of his 44 playoff appearances have come in the last four years with Philadelphia. That’s four playoff games (and no wins) in his first eight seasons, before finally landing on a contender. Grant Williams, of course, is the opposite story: 46 playoff appearances in just three years, including 24 last season as Boston ran to the NBA Finals. He had 27 points on seven threes to beat the Bucks in Game 7 last year.

Jordan McRae got a ring with LeBron in Cleveland in 2016. But for regular contributors, Tennessee’s cupboard remains bare. Before Grant Williams last season, Allan Houston came closest in 1999. You also just never know, from the draft to each contract. Tobias Harris has one year left on his deal with Philadelphia. Grant Williams is a restricted free agent as soon as this playoff run ends. Josh Richardson is an unrestricted free agent.

Beyond these three, Kennedy Chandler just got released by Memphis as they shifted their roster for the playoffs. He joined Keon Johnson (Portland) and Admiral Schofield (Orlando) in making 30-40 regular season appearances this year. With the Sixers locked into their playoff seed, Jaden Springer scored 19 points in 34 minutes against Atlanta last week.

The Vols have more quantity than ever before in the league. And the three guys who have carried that torch best since C.J. Watson will have a chance to make some UT history this postseason.

What does it take to make it to the Final Four?

Another NCAA Tournament has come and gone, and it gives us another opportunity to try and figure out why in the world the Vols just can’t seem to make it to the Final Four.

That, of course, has been a question on the minds of Tennessee fans for decades now, but it’s been put even more into focus over the last 15 or so years with the likes of Bruce Pearl and Rick Barnes leading the Vols to multiple trips to the Sweet Sixteen in that span. Yet, with a total of seven Sweet Sixteen appearances since 2000, Tennessee has managed to to advance to the Elite Eight only once in those seven attempts, and there have been zero Final Fours then or at any point in UT men’s basketball history.

You can look at any number of factors to try and figure out what Tennessee needs to do in order to finally reach that coveted Final Four. You can look at roster construction, coaching style, seeding, scheduling, and philosophy. But one easy way is to use analytics to try and see if there’s a common theme among teams that have made Final Four runs in recent history.

So let’s consult everyone’s favorite statistician: Ken Pomeroy.

I looked at the last 10 NCAA Tournaments (2013-23, minus the 2020 Tournament since there wasn’t one thanks to COVID) to find out if the Final Four participants over the last decade had anything in common, using KenPom’s data as a guide.

Turns out, they do have something in common. Well, a lot of them, anyway.

Let’s start with the Elite Eight, a place the Vols have only reached one time in program history. Over the last 10 NCAA Tournaments, dozens of different teams with varying makeups and philosophies have reached the final weekend of action before the Final Four. And on average, those teams have had more efficient offenses than defenses.

The average offensive efficiency ranking of an Elite Eight team over the last decade is 21st. Of the 80 teams that reached the Elite Eight over the last 10 tournaments, 38 of them had an offensive efficiency ranked inside the top 10 on KenPom, and over three-fourths of them (76.3%) had an offense that ranked inside the top 25.

On the flip side, the average defensive efficiency ranking of teams that made the Elite Eight is 24.7. That’s not drastically different than the average offensive ranking, but consider this: 31 of the 80 teams had a top-10 defense, and 54 of the 80 (67.5%) had a defense ranked inside the top 25.

For Final Four teams, those ratios are relatively similar. The average offensive ranking of the last 40 Final Four teams is 16.9, while the average defensive ranking is 19.9. Of those 40 teams, a little over half (22) had offensive efficiencies that ranked inside the top 10, while just 15 had defensive efficiencies inside the top 10. Only 8 of the 40 Final Four teams over the last decade had an offense that ranked outside the top 25 on KenPom, while 12 had defenses that ranked outside the top 25.

What’s even more telling is the fact that 25 of the last 40 Final Four teams had offenses that ranked higher than their defenses on KenPom. And that’s magnified even more for the teams that go on to win the National Championship, as Mr. Pomeroy himself stated in a tweet shortly after UConn cut down the nets this year.

Now, in some instances we’re kinda just splitting hairs with the data. There have been numerous times where teams that made the Final Four over the last 10 tournaments had an offense and a defense that both ranked in the top 10 or top 25 on KenPom. In fact, as the averages I listed above would suggest, you ideally need to be good on both offense and defense in order to advance far into the NCAA Tournament. There have been obvious exceptions, like St. Peters in 2022 that ranked 231st offensively but 25th defensively, South Carolina in 2017 that ranked 91st offensively but 3rd defensively, or Miami this year that ranked 99th defensively but 6th offensively.

Typically, though, to make it to the Elite Eight or Final Four, you have to be a top-25 team on both sides of the court and don’t usually rely too heavily on one side over the other.

So, what does this mean for the Vols?

Under Rick Barnes, Tennessee has become known for a stifling defense that usually ranks among the best in the country, but their offense can sputter and have deadly cold spells. You don’t need fancy metrics to tell you that; if you’ve watched even just a handful of games over the last 4-5 years, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But the numbers do back that up.

I’m going to do Barnes and Tennessee a favor and not look at the numbers from his first two seasons in Knoxville, as those were rebuilding years. But from the 2017-18 season up till now, the Vols have ranked inside the top 10 in defensive efficiency on KenPom four times, with the only exceptions being the 2019-20 season (that was cut short due to COVID) and the 2018-19 season.

Only once over the last six seasons have the Vols had an offense that ranked in the top 10 on KenPom. And you can probably guess which team that was (yes, it was the 2018-19 team, and they finished 3rd in offensive efficiency that season). In fact, that’s the only time under Barnes that the Vols have even had an offense that ranked in the top 30 on KenPom, with the 2021-22 team (35th) and the 2017-18 team (36th) being the next-highest.

Excluding the 2019-20 team, Barnes’ last five teams that ended up making the NCAA Tournament have had an average offensive ranking of 44.6, while the defense has averaged a ranking of 11.4.

SeasonOffensive RankingDefensive Ranking
2022-2364th1st
2021-2235th3rd
2020-2185th5th
2018-193rd42nd
2017-1836th6th

This isn’t to say that Tennessee can’t or won’t make it to another Elite Eight or the program’s first Final Four under Barnes. There have been multiple teams that have made it to the Elite Eight or made Final Four runs with defenses that are significantly better than their offenses. San Diego State this year is an example, as the Aztecs ranked 4th on defense but 75th on offense. Texas Tech in 2019 made it to the Final Four with the No. 1 defense but an offense that ranked 25th, and Michigan in 2018 finished with the 3rd-best defense but the 35th-ranked offense. Back in 2014, the last time UConn won a national title before this year, the Huskies’ defense ranked 10th while their offense ranked 39th.

But more often than not, teams with offenses that are more efficient than their defenses are the ones more capable of going on deeper NCAA Tournament runs. And under Barnes, the Vols have only fit that criteria one time over the last six years.

Oddly enough, Tennessee’s lone Elite Eight team doesn’t fit into the analytics of the last decade. That 2010 Elite Eight run was fueled by a defense that ranked 11th but an offense that ranked 75th. In fact, it will probably surprise you to learn which Tennessee team was actually the most complete team from an analytical perspective over the last 20 years.

That would be Cuonzo Martin’s 2013-14 Vol squad.

In Cuonzo’s third and final year, the Vols finished 15th in offensive efficiency and 19th in defensive efficiency. Tennessee ran at a slow pace, with a tempo that ranked 313th in the country, but they were highly efficient on both ends of the court. Actually, those rankings are in line with the averages for teams that have made it to the Final Four over the last decade, but Tennessee fell in the Sweet Sixteen that year (thanks partially to a blown charge call, but I digress).

Clearly analytics aren’t everything, because that Vol squad was a Final Four team on paper. But it certainly didn’t play out that way, and that team is more of an exception given the data we have over the last decade.

So, this was a long-winded post that basically boils down to this: In order to make it to another Elite Eight or to the program’s first-ever Final Four, the Vols are likely going to have to up their offensive production and maybe focus a little less on defense. Will Rick Barnes do that? He’s only done it once so far at Tennessee, but that was arguably his best team at UT. While at Texas, Barnes had a better offense than defense nine times in the KenPom era (starting in the 2001-02 season), but only one of those instances came in his last five years as the Longhorns’ head coach.

A team doesn’t have to have a better offense than defense in order to have success in March, but it’s usually better if they do. Maybe the Vols can buck the trend in the coming years, or maybe Barnes will adapt and focus more on the offense.

Either way, let’s just hope Tennessee’s Final Four drought doesn’t continue much longer.

Adding Context to Yet Another March Exit

Hello there. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, so I hope I’m not too rusty.

It’s been a little over two and a half years since I’ve written an article about Tennessee athletics. For those of you who know me, welcome back! I don’t think this will be a regular thing, but I’m grateful for Will Shelton and the Gameday on Rocky Top crew for allowing me the space to write as I please about the Vols. For those of you who have no idea who I am, prepare yourselves. I have a huge passion for writing, and a huge passion for the Vols, specifically both basketball programs. So most of my writing here will be about them.

For my first article in several years, I wanted to take a look at this season for the men’s basketball team and try to add some historical context to try and ease some of the pain, or at least maybe make some more sense of it. Really, I think writing this is just a form a therapy for me, and you all are just along for the ride. But maybe it will help you out, too.

But enough of the introductions. On to why you clicked here in the first place.

***

This season wasn’t a failure, so why does it kinda feel like one?

In what’s become all-too-commonplace for Tennessee’s men’s basketball program, the Vols were bounced before they could reach the Elite Eight last week when they lost 62-55 to FAU.

If you’ve been following Tennessee basketball for more than a decade, this loss may seem like a familiar one to you, though.

This season is just another instance of deja vu for a program that has one Elite Eight to its name. For some reason, though, it feels like I’ve seen a lot more negative reaction to this year’s loss in the NCAA Tournament than I personally think it deserves.

And a lot of that vitriol is aimed squarely at Rick Barnes.

I think it’s fair to criticize Barnes. I’m not a fan of how often he plays two big men on the floor at the same time who aren’t threats to shoot from distance, and I wish he would push pace more with his offenses. I love the tenacity with which his teams play defense, but I desperately want that same aggression to carry over on the offensive side of the ball. Too often, I don’t think Barnes’ offenses attack the rim enough and instead settle for threes or midrange jumpers. The two teams I can think of that did drive to the basket more and were more aggressive were the Grant and Admiral teams from 2017-19, and one of those got dealt bad injury luck in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, and the other was put in arguably the toughest bracket of the entire 2019 tournament.

Barnes deserves critiques. But I think a lot of it has gone too far, and I think a lot of fans either aren’t aware of or have forgotten just how bad the Vols have been in postseason play historically.

Did you know Rick Barnes is only the second head coach in program history to take the Vols to multiple Sweet Sixteens? The only other coach to do so at UT is Bruce Pearl. In fact, Barnes’ 6-5 record in the NCAA Tournament is the second-best record among coaches who made more than one NCAA Tournament at Tennessee (Cuonzo Martin went 3-1 in the NCAA Tournament thanks to that unlikely 2014 run, but that was his only trip in three seasons). He has the second-most NCAA Tournament wins of any Vol head coach, trailing only Bruce Pearl’s eight wins.

Oh, and he also has the program’s only SEC Tournament championship in the last 40 years.

In my opinion, Ray Mears is still the best overall head coach Tennessee’s men’s basketball program has ever had. But the man struggled mightily in the NCAA Tournament. Granted, making the Big Dance was a lot harder back then with a smaller field of teams that got selected, but from 1962-77, Mears led the Vols to just three NCAA Tournament appearances and lost every game he coached in that tournament. He did lead UT to a third-place finish in the NIT in 1969, and the NIT was a bigger deal back then than it is now. But still.

Don DeVoe went 5-6 in the NCAA Tournament with one Sweet Sixteen appearance (which was in 1981, and the Vols received a bye from the first round and only began play in the Round of 32). Jerry Green went 3-4 in the tournament and made it to one Sweet Sixteen.

And that was it before Bruce Pearl took over in 2005. Three head coaches had combined for an 8-14 mark in the NCAA Tournament before the 2005-06 season, and a host of UT head coaches had failed to ever even sniff the NCAA Tournament in that stretch as well. Cliff Wettig (one season between Mears and DeVoe), Wade Houston, Kevin O’Neill, and Buzz Peterson never made it to the NCAA Tournament in their combined 13 years as head coach. In fact, the Vols missed the tournament altogether from 1990-98. That’s almost an entire decade of irrelevance in a sport that’s judged so heavily by postseason results.

Then, Pearl came along and raised the standard. And that’s a good thing. Tennessee as a program should be able to compete for a Sweet Sixteen run year-in and year-out. But I think that Pearl run has maybe skewed expectations for a large group of fans who don’t remember the dark days of UT basketball, which was pretty much the entirety of the late 80s through the early 00s.

A large portion of those fans are ones in my generation, the Millennials. I grew up watching a lot of Tennessee football, but I didn’t really get into UT basketball till the tail end of the Buzzball era, and Pearl entranced me with his showmanship and winning ways.

I think a lot of fans who are now in their 30s (like me) or 40s were in a similar boat back then, and I think it’s mostly this group and fans who are even younger than that who have the most disdain for Barnes’ failures in the postseason.

But when you step back and look at the history of Tennessee’s men’s basketball program, it can seriously be argued that Barnes is the second-most successful postseason coach behind only Pearl. And he’s a controversial foul call away from matching Pearl on the number of Elite Eights with that 2018-19 team.

To me, that says more about Tennessee as a whole than it does Barnes, but that’s precisely my point. Tennessee has just been downright bad in March up until the last 18 years or so.

It’s absolutely fine to want more and better for Tennessee basketball. I certainly do, and I’m not satisfied with just two Sweet Sixteens in the last five years. The Vols could’ve made it that far or further in 2018 and 2022, and one of those Sweet Sixteens could easily have turned into an Elite Eight or Final Four appearance.

But it’s also good to keep perspective, and I think the sting of this most recent loss to FAU will fade with a little time. Especially when you remember the Vols were playing without the heartbeat of their team, Zakai Zeigler, and weren’t at all expected to even make it that far because of that and how the team had been playing to end the regular season and SEC Tournament.

Tennessee used 10 different starting lineups this season and had a full healthy roster for maybe nine of their 36 total games. Two players played the entirety of the 2022-23 campaign: Olivier Nkamhoua and Jahmai Mashack. One of those players was coming off a season-ending injury last year, and the other was largely a role player until later in the season.

Santiago Vescovi missed a handful of games and had a nagging shoulder for parts of the season, Josiah-Jordan James missed a dozen games, Julian Phillips missed four games, and Tyreke Key had to sit out for a handful of games as well. Then Zakai Zeigler suffered his season-ending injury in the second-to-last game of the regular season and missed the final six games of the year.

By all accounts, this team had no business making it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, especially considering they had a historical power standing in their way in the second round.

Yet, they did.

The Vols had some fun and impressive wins this past season, most notably against No. 1 Alabama, then-reigning national champion Kansas, a dominating win over Texas, and a win over Duke in the NCAA Tournament. They also had several disappointing performances in losses to Colorado, Vanderbilt, Florida, and two losses apiece to Kentucky and Missouri.

Ultimately, the season ended in disappointment. But I think a lot of people are holding that too strongly against Barnes when March Madness is such an insane crap shoot, and it’s a miracle any coach has consistent and sustained success in the NCAA Tournament, in my opinion.

Look at Nate Oats, for example. He had the No. 1 overall seed this season and lost in the Sweet 16, the same round his Alabama squad lost in during the 2021 tournament. That team also won the SEC regular season and conference titles like this year’s Alabama squad, yet neither could make it beyond the Sweet Sixteen. Aside from that, Oats has a first-round exit in 2022 while at Alabama and took Buffalo to the NCAA Tournament three times in four years but failed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen while there.

Tony Bennett at Virginia won the national title in 2019 but has two of the most inexplicable losses in the NCAA Tournament on his resume, including the first-ever 1-seed to lose to a 16-seed. In fact, other than that national championship, Bennett hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2017. Virginia has been bounced in the first round in 2018, 2021, and 2023, and they failed to even make the tournament in 2022.

And how about ol’ Bruce Pearl? He made that blistering Final Four run with Auburn in 2019, but he’s failed to get past the second round the three other times he’s taken the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament.

It’s good to want more for the Vols. It’s good to not be satisfied with what the ceiling is perceived to be right now. It’s good to have higher expectations than what history has shown, especially when the head coach’s price tag puts him among the elite of college basketball.

At the same time, it’s good to also keep some perspective and put things into context. The Vols are in good shape under Barnes, and his shortcomings in the postseason at Tennessee aren’t just exclusive to him. He’s just the latest in what has become a painfully long list of UT head coaches who have failed to find that magic in March that so many other programs have discovered.

There’s a reason Tennessee has the fourth-most NCAA Tournament appearances in men’s basketball without ever making a Final Four (25). Only BYU (30), Missouri (29), and Xavier (29) have more. Tennessee has been woefully unlucky and outplayed in March throughout the last 40 or so years. That started well before Barnes took over in 2015.

Luckily, the Vols actually seem to have found some rare stability under Barnes. He just finished his 8th season at the helm, which already ties him with John Mauer for the 5th-longest tenure in Tennessee men’s basketball history. Another three seasons, and Barnes will have been in Knoxville as long as Don DeVoe was.

Tennessee can do better in the postseason. They’ve knocked on the door so many times. One day they’ll finally bust it down.

But for a program littered with so many March failures, it seems a little unfair to place so much blame on Rick Barnes’ shoulders. He isn’t perfect, but he has Tennessee consistently among the top-15 programs year-in and year-out, and winning in March is like winning the lottery; the more chances you get, the better your odds of winning big.

One day, the Vols are going to finally make the Final Four. Maybe it will be under Barnes, and maybe it won’t. Until then, we just have to hope the Vols can keep giving themselves the chances to get there.

What was Tennessee’s “easiest” path to the Final Four?

In this chaos bracket, shout out to Miami: the Hurricanes went through the hardest possible path as a five seed, knocking off a 12, 4, 1, and 2 to reach the Final Four. That’s a seed score of 19, far stronger than UConn (29), Florida Atlantic (31), or San Diego State (32). Each of those teams would say, “Who cares!” right about now, and that’s exactly right. And each of those teams took down a top three seed in their region to make it to Houston.

For Tennessee, the lament of, “only a nine seed away from the Elite Eight!” is frustrating for sure, especially as our program seeks its first Final Four. In one sense, every eliminated team is feeling some sense of missed opportunity in this year’s w-i-d-e open tournament. But for Tennessee, I wanted to try to quantify exactly how missed the opportunity was, how “open” Tennessee’s path was compared to other shots we’ve had.

So we went back through each of the brackets going back to the Jerry Green days, and pulled nine of them. We didn’t consider any years when Tennessee lost in the first round, or was blown out in any round. In trying to find our “best” path to the Final Four and compare this year’s opportunity to it, we found a few surprises along the way.

Tennessee’s “Best” Paths to the Final Four

1. 2018: 14 Wright State + 11 Loyola Chicago + 7 Nevada + 9 Kansas State = 41

2. 2006: 15 Winthrop + 7 Wichita State + 11 George Mason + 1 UConn = 34

3. 2000: 13 Louisiana-Lafayette + 5 UConn + 8 North Carolina + 7 Tulsa = 33

4a. 2010: 11 San Diego State + 14 Ohio + 2 Ohio State + 5 Michigan State = 32

4b. 2022: 14 Longwood + 11 Michigan + 2 Villanova + 5 Houston = 32

6a. 2014: 6 UMass + 14 Mercer + 2 Michigan + 8 Kentucky = 30 (plus Dayton)

6b. 2023: 13 Louisiana + 5 Duke + 9 Florida Atlantic + 3 Kansas State = 30

8. 2019: 15 Colgate + 10 Iowa + 3 Purdue + 1 Virginia = 29

9. 2007: 12 Long Beach State + 4 Virginia + 1 Ohio State + 2 Memphis = 19

So, a couple of notes here:

The first opportunity for both Bruce Pearl and Rick Barnes is, so far, the “best” opportunity. 2018 still stands apart here, where the Vols would’ve faced no one seeded higher than seven to get to the Final Four. Of course, you can use that luck both ways, as Kyle Alexander was injured in the Round 1 win over Wright State, just before the Vols were Sister Jeaned in Round 2.

Meanwhile, there’s probably been no house money like 2006: in the tournament for the first time in five years, with the program’s highest seed of all-time. A magical year one for Pearl came to an end in Round 2 against Wichita State. A back-and-forth affair saw the Vols take a five point lead with 5:46 to play. It was tied with two to play, when Wichita hit a jumper and a three on back-to-back possessions, followed by two missed UT free throws. The loss was disappointing, but the future seemed (and was!) bright. This turned out to be the George Mason bracket, who the Vols would’ve played in the Sweet 16.

Both of these teams brought a ton of talent back, which always makes it easier to pivot to next year. And both teams made the Sweet 16 the following season. But the math suggests you never take any of these opportunities for granted. I feel the same way about our lone appearance in the Elite Eight: I wouldn’t rate that Michigan State loss as the most heartbreaking for our program, not by far, because we were so excited just to be there. But in hindsight, it’s still our closest call…and it was really close!

This year’s bracket may be craziest overall, but not necessarily for Tennessee. To make this Final Four, the Vols would’ve still needed to go through a five seed and a three seed. It’s pretty similar to what we saw last season, when Tennessee would’ve had to face a two and a five in the regionals. Both of them felt like missed opportunities, but at least on paper, they’re not as bad as 2018, 2006, or 2000.

Tennessee’s best team also faced the most difficult path. The 2019 Vols, even had they gone through Purdue in the 2/3 Sweet 16 game, would’ve met number one Virginia in the Elite Eight. The Hoos and Boilermakers played a classic in real life, but that Virginia squad is one of the best college basketball teams of at least the last ten years. Sometimes you’re just unlucky in that regard: the Vols had their best season in one of college basketball’s best seasons ever.

…except for 2007. Of note here: in a vacuum, by far the hardest tournament loss we’ve had is 2007 Ohio State. The Vols lost a 20-point halftime lead on the one seed Buckeyes, made 16 threes but missed more than half of their free throws, and lost at the buzzer. It was awful. But for one, that team would’ve had the chalk scenario to get to the Final Four, even though they beat Memphis handily in the regular season. And two, as hard as that loss was, we tend not to think of it that way anymore because the Vols redeemed it. Not just by what the 2008 team did in getting to number one, but the 2010 Vols went through Ohio State to get to the Elite Eight. You never know.

The good news here: other than that 2007 squad, every Tennessee team with a reasonable chance to make the Final Four saw at least one upset in their path. That doesn’t seem to be a trend that’ll change anytime soon. Opportunities are available, and not just this season. Keep giving yourself the best possible chance in climbing the bracket with a great regular season, and then shoot your shot in March. In that regard, the Vols continue to be in good shape, and meaningful opportunities should continue to present themselves.

Go Vols.

FAU 62 Tennessee 55 – The One Leads to the Other

I’ve been doing this a long time, which means I’ve been wrong a lot. Tennessee’s continual lineup fluctuations this season made them harder to predict in some ways, but we felt like their rebounding had moved to the forefront in playing taller lineups since Zakai Zeigler went down. The Vols had their three best defensive rebounding performances of the season against power five competition in the previous six games, capped off by holding Duke to a season-low 13% on the offensive glass.

And then last night, Florida Atlantic got 38% of their misses, the second-worst performance for the Vols all season.

Perhaps it was a smattering of four-guard lineups, something we thought Tennessee would do a lot this year but never really materialized due to injury. Some of it was FAU’s unusual size and excellent spacing, putting bodies in places we’re not used to seeing them when shots come off.

But it was a crucial element, and on both ends of the floor. A Tennessee team whose primary love language isn’t offense used the glass all season to create second chances. But the Vols couldn’t find excellence there either against the undersized Owls, getting the rebound 35.5% of the time on their own misses. That’s not bad, but when Tennessee shot just 33.3% from the floor, it all added up to not quite enough.

Sometimes the worst losses are the “we should’ve had it” defeats, and this one – both for Tennessee’s lead for the first 28 minutes, and Florida Atlantic’s overall seed – stings on both fronts. Credit the Owls for their run between the under 12 and the under 8, burying threes and putting enough cushion between them and us in that short span that our offense couldn’t overcome from there. And sure, FAU is definitely better than your average nine seed, just the same as Loyola Chicago was definitely better than your average 11 seed. Our brains and this sport just aren’t necessarily wired to feel it that way.

Tennessee has made the Sweet 16 seven times now in the 64-team format, all since 2000. It stings to be 1-6 in those games, a ceiling the program will continue to face until they break through to the next one. The history major in me always enjoys questions like, “How would we rate those losses?”, but the answer is in part, “they all hurt!”.

  • 2000: Lost a seven-point lead with 4:30 to play on eight-seed North Carolina, with a six or seven seed waiting in the Elite Eight.
  • 2007: Lost a 20-point halftime lead on #1 Ohio State and were blocked away at the buzzer. Shot 16-of-31 from three but 8-of-17 at the free throw line.
  • 2008: Our best team in program history, at least at the time, was outmatched from the start against Louisville in a 2/3 game, a 16-point loss.
  • 2014: An iffy charge call on Jarnell Stokes
  • 2019: Ryan Cline

What’s the two-sentence version of last night? Fluctuating lineups due to injury lead to an unusual rebounding disadvantage, nine-seed FAU makes one run we can’t overcome?

When we remember this team, I do think the lineups and injuries are in that initial paragraph. It was for Rick Barnes and his seniors in the postgame last night. The last two games will most closely mirror that 2000 tournament. It had the advantage of being Tennessee’s first trip to the Sweet 16, giving some percentage of house money for sure. It also might be our most “we should’ve had it!” of these losses, giving some percentage of the largest heartbreak.

Without question, that team’s second round win over UConn and this team’s second round win over Duke are 2A and 2B in postseason wins in Tennessee basketball history. That should, and I think will, stand the test of time. Until you win it all in this thing, your best win is always going to be tied to your next loss. There was more house money 23 years ago, but that team was also closer to the finish line before giving up the big run. They all hurt. They’re all supposed to.

There are lots of fun things to remember about this bunch, who got to number one in KenPom and beat number one Alabama. The Duke win will live on far beyond them, in ways I think their overall story with injuries will help. And they continued the good work that is Tennessee Basketball: being in the fight, finishing the regular season with a top four seed and a chance to advance, then doing just that against Duke.

I have no doubt the Vols will break through at some point, and I deeply hope it’s under Rick Barnes and his staff. The last two tournaments have shown us how, no matter how well you’re playing on the way in or how disjointed, everyone has a chance to advance in this thing. I’m so grateful for Tennessee taking advantage of that opportunity to get to the Sweet 16 this year, and it hurts that it didn’t extend to the Elite Eight with a real opportunity to do so.

This is the good work of Tennessee’s entire athletic department: give yourself a chance to win the title. If you only celebrate the breakthroughs, you miss most of the fun. And if you don’t hurt at the end, you miss most of the investment.

This program continues to give us a chance to do something special. We were close to something more, and that will always hurt. But looking back on the whole, I think we’ll find much to be proud of. And I’m grateful to Barnes and this team that this, too, is the norm.

Go Vols.