NCAA Tournament: Tennessee basketball vs. Oregon State live stream, game time, TV and radio info
March Madness is back! Tennessee basketball takes the court for its first NCAA Tournament game of the 2020-2021 season, as the Big Dance resumes play with all the games taking place in Indiana after having to be canceled last year due to a COVID outbreak.
The Vols enter this game at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind. as a No. 5 seed, coming off a loss to the No. 5 ranked SEC regular season and tournament champion Alabama Crimson Tide in their most recent outing. UT lost to Bama in the SEC Tournament semifinals by three without its top post player, John Fulkerson.
Facing Rick Barnes’ team in the first round of the NCAA Tournament will be the No. 12 seed Oregon State Beavers. Seventh-year head coach Wayne Tinkle’s team got into the Big Dance thanks to a red-hot run in the Pac-12 Tournament, winning three games in three days to capture the title. Here is all the information you need for the matchup.
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Live stream: NCAA.com
Radio: Vol Network; Beaver Sports Radio Network
Listen online: UTSports; TuneIn
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Led by 6’5″ 195-pound senior guard Ethan Thompson, who is averaging over 15 points a game, Oregon State has a backcourt that can score and plays great perimeter defense. Junior forward Warith Alatishe is their inside presence at 6’7″ 200 pounds, but he is a versatile defender similar to Yves Pons, as he averages over one steal and one block per game.
However, the x-factor for this team is Jarod Lucas, the other guard. Lucas is averaging just under 13 points a game and the team’s three-point specialist, hitting 39.4 percent of his shots from beyond the arc and making nearly two and a half a game.
Recently, Lucas has led a red-hot three-point shooting effort by Oregon State that has allowed them to win six of their last seven. They shot 43.9 percent from outside in the Pac-12 Tournament, hitting 29 three-pointers in three days.
Obviously, this is a red-hot team with those numbers, and the Vols could be prone to an upset. UT hasn’t lost in the NCAA Tournament Round of 64 since getting blown out by the Michigan Wolverines back in 2011, Bruce Pearl’s final year on the job.
This is the first meeting between Tennessee basketball and Oregon State since December of 1990, a game Oregon State won 82-66. In fact, Oregon State has won three of the four meetings between these two schools, dating back to 1964, but none of them have been during March Madness. All of them were in December.
Although they likely would have missed the Big Dance in 2020, the cancelation of it means that the Vols will have now played in each of the last three March Madness events dating back to 2018 under Barnes once they tip off Friday. Given the state of the program when Barnes took over in 2015, that’s a major accomplishment.
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Whichever team wins this game will advance to play Sunday against the winner between the No. 4 seed Oklahoma State Cowboys, who are ranked No. 11 in the AP Poll and No. 12 in the Coaches Poll, and No. 13 seed Liberty Flames. Those two teams face off at 6:25 p.m. ET.