Almost eight years ago, I sat in a hotel room in Lexington, KY and wrote this:
This marriage is worth saving. We can survive without each other, but it will not be the same. And I do not believe that Bruce Pearl and Tennessee Basketball will ever be as good apart as we are together.
Save Bruce Pearl – Rocky Top Talk, March 18, 2011
Do this for any length of time, and you get to be wrong. And sometimes, you get to be wrong in ways that delight you.
With Tennessee going to number one, I’ve thought about those last few days at the end of Pearl’s tenure, when it felt like we were giving away something we wouldn’t get back. And I’ve also thought about those few days in November of 2017, when a basketball team picked to finish 13th in the SEC upset #18 Purdue in the Bahamas, four days before the football team almost hired Greg Schiano. In a relatively short period of time, we’ve experienced the worst of football – and the potential to stay there had things gone any number of ways with the head coach and athletic director hires – and now the very best of basketball.
Living at the extremes of football and basketball is another reminder of why we do this as fans: for all the moments along the journey, not just the peaks.
I don’t know how many times we’ve thought we were at rock bottom in football in the last decade. Nothing would be harder than saying goodbye to Fulmer. Nothing could be worse than losing your head coach in the middle of the night in January. Whoever followed Dooley would surely help the program ascend. Whoever we hired next would be more well-received than Butch. It can always get worse.
And I do know what Tennessee basketball achieved under Pearl was special, in a way that seemed impossible to duplicate. Yet here we are, back at the top of the polls and playing even better than the 2008 team, at least according to KenPom. It can always get better.
Follow the Vols (or any team) long enough, and you get the relative highs and lows. The whole of it brings us back, the relationship itself. That relationship hasn’t been boring the last ten years, in either sport. We’ve all had our moments, but we’re still here…and right now, here to the tune of 21,000+ at Thompson-Boling for Tennessee Tech, Georgia, and Alabama, with a multitude of sellouts to come.
I don’t know where this is going, or how far. Can the Vols stay healthy? Hungry? As good as we are, KenPom still projects three losses left in the regular season, even before we try to slay a 40-year dragon in the SEC Tournament. We’ve only made the Elite Eight once. We’ve never made the Final Four.
I only know it’s going to Vanderbilt on Wednesday night. And I know we’ll keep following.
It’s great. To be.
