All for Tennessee
Fansided

Tennessee basketball: Vols still overachieved despite Sweet 16 loss

By Caleb Calhoun

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - MARCH 28: Tennessee Volunteers fans reacts against the Purdue Boilermakers during overtime of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament South Regional at the KFC YUM! Center on March 28, 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - MARCH 28: Tennessee Volunteers fans reacts against the Purdue Boilermakers during overtime of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament South Regional at the KFC YUM! Center on March 28, 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Tennessee basketball fell to the Purdue Boilermakers in the NCAA Tournament. But the Volunteers still overachieved despite their March Madness loss.

Fans look back on Tennessee basketball’s loss to the Purdue Boilermakers with rightful bitterness. A team that began the year in the top 10, beat the No. 1 team in the country and was No. 1 for four straight weeks themselves failed to win the SEC regular season or tournament title and lost in the Sweet 16 off a series of very questionable calls.

Purdue took seven seconds to inbound the ball on their final possession to tie in regulation. They benefitted from a very questionable foul call after the inbound. And worst of all, the Vols did not have the amount of time they should have had to get a shot off in the final possession. So the game went to overtime, where they lost.

This is not the greatest Tennessee basketball team ever. That remains the one from 2007-2008, which had as many wins as this one despite a tougher strength of schedule, also reached No. 1 and managed to win the SEC regular season championship.

But think about what this team did before overreacting to your disappointment. A six-man rotation that had zero top 100 recruits made it to No. 1 for four weeks in a row, beat the No. 1 team in the country, had a 19-game winning streak and won 31 games tied for the most in school history.

The Vols went as far as any of their previous teams that had NBA stars like Bernard King, Ernie Grunfeld and Dale Ellis did. These guys were a play away from going to the Elite 8, fighting back from 18 down in their Sweet 16 matchup against one of the best defensive teams in college basketball and only being eliminated in overtime.

Considering the lack of raw talent on this team, it’s totally unfair to every player starting out there to say they underachieved. Given the drastic situation Rick Barnes inherited four years ago, fans should be incredibly happy about how this turned out.

So they didn’t win the national championship or make a Final Four. Does that negate everything that happened throughout the season? No. And it doesn’t negate what Barnes has built on Rocky Top four years in.

This team only has two seniors in Admiral Schofield and Kyle Alexander. They have DJ Burns, who redshirted this year, in perfect position to replace Alexander. And a five-star guard in Josiah James is heading to Knoxville.

The juniors on the squad are Jordan Bone, Jordan Bowden, Grant Williams and Lamonte Turner. But only Bone and maybe Williams are guys who have the potential to be first-rounders. Turner has a chance. Bowden is likely not going anywhere.

Still, if I had to bet, I’d say two of the three guards stay another year, and Williams stays as well. That puts this team in great position to make another run next year. So take a step back and look at the overall program now.

Tennessee basketball has arrived, and they should be proud of how things went this year. The Vols hired Barnes to build a program and bring stability. There’s no way you can question, with the recruiting and the roster, that he hasn’t done those things. As a result, there is plenty of reason for excitement surrounding the program’s future.

Home/Vols Basketball