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Tennessee basketball: Ranking all 6 Vols losses of 2018-2019 by heartbreak

By Caleb Calhoun

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY - MARCH 28: The Tennessee Volunteers bench looks on 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: The Tennessee Volunteers bench looks on 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) /
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Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images /

3. No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers vs. No. 22 Auburn Tigers

SEC Tournament Championship; Sunday, March 17, 2019

As heartbreaking as the close loss to the Auburn Tigers was to end the regular season, Tennessee basketball’s blowout loss to Bruce Pearl’s team eight days later hurt worse. This loss assured that the Vols would not have any regular season banners heading into March Madness: early season tournament title, regular season SEC title or SEC Tournament title.

That’s always a negative. And this one directly caused it. Rick Barnes’s team entered this game coming off a hugely emotional win over the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday. They were riding a wave of momentum, and Vols fans scooped up all the tickets Kentucky left over.

But on the day of the game, they opened with a hangover from still celebrating the previous win, which champions don’t do. Using their deep rotation and tempo, Auburn consistently forced Tennessee turnovers in the first half for easy buckets. Then, when the Vols finally regrouped, the Tigers got red-hot shooting the ball.

So in front of a Tennessee crowd in Nashville, Auburn ran away with the SEC Tournament Championship a week after ruining the Vols’ chances at a share of the SEC regular season title. This was a direct loss that cost UT the third most important title it could win behind an NCAA Tournament title and SEC regular season title. That makes it No. 3 on the list.

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