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March Madness: 5 things we learned about Vols after the first weekend

By Caleb Calhoun

COLUMBUS, OHIO - MARCH 24: Lamonte Turner #1 and Jordan Bowden #23 of the Tennessee Volunteers react after defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes 83-77 in the Second Round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament at Nationwide Arena on March 24, 2019 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
COLUMBUS, OHIO - MARCH 24: Lamonte Turner #1 and Jordan Bowden #23 of the Tennessee Volunteers react after defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes 83-77 in the Second Round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament at Nationwide Arena on March 24, 2019 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images /

Tennessee basketball advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Here are five things the first weekend of March Madness told us about the Volunteers.

Survive and advance. That’s long been the mantra for anybody competing in March Madness, and it held true for Tennessee basketball after the first weekend of the 2019 NCAA Tournament. The Vols literally had to survive.

A No. 2 seed, Rick Barnes’s team built a 16-point lead in their opening game only to find themselves trailing in the second half. Then they built a 25-point lead in the second round only to need overtime to win. As you can see, the madness truly has taken off on Rocky Top.

Nonetheless, the Vols are in their first Sweet 16 since 2014, and Barnes is in his first since 2008. It doesn’t matter how you got there, as long as you get there. But what does this all tell us about the next round of games?

The Vols next task in March Madness is a Thursday night game against the No. 3 seed Purdue Boilermakers in Louisville. Both teams will be hoping to reach the Elite Eight, and well, let’s just say Matt Painter’s team had an easier time getting there.

What does this all tell us about Rocky Top? That’s going to be the focus of our post here. After two major scares, there are good and bad things we learned about this team that didn’t exist during the regular season.

What can they take from that into the second weekend? How crucial is it for them to correct some of the things they exposed in the first weekend? These are all questions for a team looking to make its first Final Four in school history.

So let’s go ahead and break down what we saw this past Friday and Sunday before they begin the next weekend of games. These are the five things we learned about the Vols from the first weekend of March Madness.

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