Tennessee basketball: Vols win vs. Gonzaga even more impressive than it looks
Tennessee basketball upset the No. 1 ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs Sunday. Here is why the Volunteers’ victory is even more impressive than it looks.
By itself, beating the No. 1 ranked team in the nation is highly impressive for Tennessee basketball. Even in a year with high expectations, that’s always a great accomplishment. The fact that it’s the first win over a top-ranked team of Rick Barnes’s career makes it more special.
Even with their win, though, the Vols even have more to celebrate. Beating Gonzaga was even more impressive than it looked when you consider everything that went into it. And it makes the point crystal clear that Barnes has a national championship-caliber team.
We can just start with the fact that Gonzaga beat the Duke Blue Devils two weeks earlier when Duke was being talked about as the best team of all time. Add in the fact that this was on a neutral court in Phoenix, and Tennessee basketball just looks better and better.
On top of that, the Vols weren’t fully loaded. Lamonte Turner remains hurt, and he clearly wasn’t 100 percent when he did play on the season. Had he been, this team would likely be undefeated right now and talking about a No. 1 ranking after Sunday’s win.
Instead, they had to play the game Sunday without Turner, their sixth-man of the year who provided the necessary scoring punch off the bench. Gonzaga fans will point to their team playing without Kevin Tillie, but it’s worth noting they had won every game to this point without Tillie, including that huge win over Duke.
Meanwhile, Tennessee basketball did not have a lot of things go right that normally would for them in a game. They only shot 10 free throws and missed four of them. Jordan Bone had a horrible game shooting, which limited their inside-out play.
And to top it all off, Grant Williams fouled out with two and a half minutes to go in the game. Not only did he foul out, but Kyle Alexander and Admiral Schofield both suffered foul trouble as well with four apiece to end the game.
Think about where the Vols were at that point. Their best player fouls out, their second best player and best interior defender are both in foul trouble, and they also are playing without their top scoring guard. Oh, and they are down by two with the ball in the other team’s hands.
It’s a horrible situation to be in, but fighting through is what championship teams are made of. And Schofield decided to fight through, going off at the very end, scoring eight points and nailing two three-pointers. He remained calm the whole time and hit his final three right after appearing to get hurt on the other side of the court when Bone landed awkwardly on him.
Next. 3 takeaways from Vols win vs. Gonzaga. dark
Analysts can point to a red-hot shooting night from Schofield as evidence of luck in this game for the Vols. They can complain about that banked three-pointer he hit. But given everything the Vols were up against, just staying in the game was beyond impressive. And winning the game over the No. 1 team in the country was even more impressive when you factor all of this into play.