Tennessee basketball has some NCAA Tournament memories ... both good and bad

Second-seeded Tennessee will open play in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday against No. 15 St. Peters, and the Vols will be looking for the first Final Four trip in the history of the program.

Given that Tennessee is making its 26th appearance in the NCAA Tournament and has made the Elite Eight on just one occasion, the collective memory vault of Vol fans isn’t filled with a ton of shining moments.

But Tennessee has had some highlights from NCAA Tournaments past, just maybe not as many as some of its peers.

Just looking back through the teams that I have covered, starting in 2002, here are the five most (positive) memorable Tennessee moments in NCAA play that I recall.

1 — Tennessee knocks off Ohio State to reach the Elite Eight in 2010: The high-water mark for the program in NCAA Tournament history.

Sixth-seeded Tennessee knocked off No. 2 seed Ohio State and National Player of the Year Evan Turner 76-73 in St. Louis to reach the Vols’ only Elite Eight.

That was a special team that had seen leading scorer Tyler Smith dismissed from the squad in January, but rallied and got hot in March.

Wayne Chism led Tennessee with 22 points and 11 rebounds and J.P. Prince did some solid defensive work on Turner in the historic win.

2 — Vols beat Duke to reach Sweet 16 in 2023: It says something about Tennessee’s NCAA track record that a second round win can legitimately be included in the top-five moments, but it is what it is.

Tennessee limped into the tournament last spring after losing starting point guard Zakai Zeigler to a torn ACL.

Duke, made up almost solely of freshman, was a very popular pick to send Tennessee packing. The Vols weren’t having it, knocking off the Blue Devils 65-52 in a game where the Vols pushed the Dookies around.

Olivier Nkamhoua had a career high 27 points in the win and Santiago Vescovi added 14.

The 52 points for Duke was a season low in 2022-23 and a program low for an NCAA Tournament game in their history.

3 — Chris Lofton beats Winthrop at the buzzer in 2006: Tennessee hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2001 before Bruce Pearl took his first Volunteer team into the Big Dance as an unlikely No. 2 seed after a wildly successful first season.

It was perhaps understandable that Tennessee didn’t exactly look comfortable in the first NCAA appearance for any of its team members.

Tennessee was tied at 61-61 with 15th seed Winthrop with 2.9 left when Dane Bradshaw inbounded the ball to Lofton in the right corner. Lofton rose up and buried a contested jumper to break the tie and send the Vols into the second round.

Typical of Lofton, he was 1-of-8 from three-point range in the game until he buried the game-winner.

4 — Tennessee makes a Sweet 16 run in 2014: Cuonzo Martin’s third season hadn’t been entirely enjoyable.

A talented and veteran team never found any consistency that year, but found some good fortune late.

Tennessee had to play its way into the field, defeating Iowa in overtime in a ‘play-in’ game in Dayton. That sent the 11th seeded Vols to Raleigh where they beat No. 6 seed UMass.

Tennessee then caught a huge break when Mercer upset Duke. The Vols took advantage, beating Mercer to punch their ticket to the Sweet 16 where they lost to Michigan.

That team, which featured Jarnell Stokes, Jordan McRae and Josh Richardson never quite seemed to find its stride for any length of time.

5 — OT win over Butler in 2008: Some of you may not even remember this one, and that’s ok, it gets lost in the shuffle. It’s one that gets kind of forgotten, but No. 2 seed Tennessee was in a war with No. 7 seed Butler in Birmingham, a game the Vols won 76-71 in overtime.

That Butler team, coached by Brad Stevens, was 30-3 entering the game and ranked No. 11 in the nation. Two years later Stevens would have them in the Final Four before going on to a successful NBA career.

Tyler Smith led Tennessee with 16 points and seven rebounds in the game, but the Vols survived a game where they committed 20 turnovers and didn’t make a three-pointer in the second half.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Vs. Long Beach 2007 — It wasn’t an epic game by any means, but man, the first-round game in Columbus in 2007 against Long Beach State was wild.

They were one of those teams that advocated a crazy ‘run-and-gun’ style. Tennessee obliged them and won 121-86. Lofton and Jajuan Smith combined to go 8-for-14 from three.

OT win over Iowa in 2019 — It wasn’t viewed as a big win at the time, but if No. 2 seed Tennessee would have lost to 10th seed Iowa in Columbus it would have been a big deal. Tennessee prevailed 77-72 in overtime, putting the Vols into the Sweet Sixteen in Louisville.

THE FLIP SIDE

There’s obviously a flip side to those positive memories. Unfortunately for Tennessee there plenty of nightmare memories from NCAA trips of the past.

Here are the toughest losses I’ve seen the Vols take in the tournament in my time covering the team.

1 — 2010 loss to Michigan State in Elite Eight: The Vols have never been closer to the Final Four than they were on that afternoon in St. Louis.

The bracket had opened up, and after Tennessee knocked off No. 2 seed Ohio State only No. 5 seed Michigan State stood in between them and history.

Tennessee trailed by eight points in the second half, but rallied to tie it up at 69-69 on a free throw from Scotty Hopson with :11 left. Hopson had another free throw coming, but missed it.

Michigan State made one of two foul shots on the other end and Tennessee’s dream was over.

2 — Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State in 2007: Personally, having been in the building for both, I weirdly thought the Ohio State loss was tougher to swallow for the Vols

No, there wasn’t a Final Four berth at stake, but Tennessee had WHIPPED an ultra-talented Buckeye team for most of that game and just fell apart in the second half of an 85-84 loss.

That Ohio State team was 33-3 and featured Greg Oden and Mike Conley. They were rock stars, and Tennessee had them beat in San Antonio.

The Vols shot 56% in the first half while building a 49-32 halftime lead.

The Vols crumbled in the second half though and Ohio State would go onto the Final Four.

3 — Loss to Purdue in Sweet 16 in 2019: This was arguably the best Tennessee team in the history of the program. The Vols were 31-6 that year and led by two-time SEC Player of the Year Grant Williams.

Tennessee was the two seed and a very good Purdue team was the three seed in the South region.

The Boilermakers took it to Tennessee early, building a 40-28 halftime lead. The Vols stormed back in the second half.

Tennessee led 82-80 with :08 left before the Vols were whistled for a controversial foul on a Purdue three-point attempt. The Boilermakers made 2-of-3 at the line to force overtime and then prevailed 99-94 in the extra session.

4 — Upset loss to Michigan in 2nd round in 2022: Tennessee was a smoking hot basketball team entering the tournament two years ago, having just won the program’s first SEC Tournament title since 1977.

The third-seeded Vols had been hot coming down the stretch of the regular season as well behind superstar freshman Kennedy Chandler.

Michigan, an 11 seed, was a talented, but under-achieving team that season.

Tennessee led 60-54 with six minutes left to play and was outscored 18-6 over the next five minutes as the Vols closed the game going 4-for-17 from the floor.

5 — Michigan 75, Tennessee 45, 2011: This wasn’t a big game and there was certainly no drama in it, but as Bruce Pearl’s last game as Tennessee’s head coach it was a milestone.

The blowout loss in an ‘8 vs. 9 game’ was symbolic of Pearl’s last season in Knoxville.

Tennessee played like a team that just wanted the season to be over and the final score reflected that.

There were some incredibly fun seasons with Pearl at the helm of Tennessee’s program, but that last one was just a long slog that everyone was ready to see end. Covering that team while dealing with constant speculation about Pearl’s future was a miserable experience, and that last game did a nice job of providing a snap shot for what the season was like.

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