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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 Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images /

1.  No. 2 seed Tennessee Volunteers vs. No. 3 seed Purdue Boilermakers

NCAA Tournament Sweet 16; Thursday, March 28, 2019

There’s no debating that this was Tennessee basketball’s toughest loss of the season. Is anybody surprised? Any time you’re eliminated in the NCAA Tournament, it’s always going to be the worst loss your team suffered.

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Sure, the Vols had blown chances at an NIT Season Tip-Off, SEC Regular Season and SEC Tournament Championship. They blew all those shots on the final game too. However, this one ended their season and their shot at the Final Four.

After an ugly win over the Colgate Raiders and an overtime win over the Iowa Hawkeyes, Rick Barnes’s team made a habit of blowing leads in the NCAA Tournament. That sloppy play built Purdue an 18-point lead in the second half of this game.

But the Vols fought back and fought back. Were it not for Ryan Cline getting red-hot from three, they would have won. Nonetheless, they got up by 2 with seconds left. Then a controversial foul call put Carson Edwards on the free throw line, and he hit two of three to send the game into overtime.

The Boilermakers were able to regroup by that point and win the overtime round of the Sweet 16, sending them on their way to the Elite Eight and ending the Vols’ season. It ended UT’s last shot at a banner too.

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Tennessee basketball losing like that to end their season only makes the heartbreak even greater. It was already pretty obvious that this would be No. 1, but it’s actually hard to overstate how much more heartbreaking of a loss this one was over any of the other losses.

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