Tennessee basketball: Matchup with Maryland in New York long overdue

It’s been nearly 40 years since Tennessee basketball last faced the Maryland Terrapins. UMD, led by Len Bias and Lefty Driesell, beat Don DeVoe and Tony White 72-49 in 1984. UT also lost to UMD in the second round of the 1980 NCAA Tournament. However, the Vols beat them in 1949 and 1963, so the series is tied at 2.

A rematch is overdue, and it’s finally happening. UTSports revealed that the Vols and Terps would face off at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., as part of the Hall of Fame Invitational on Sunday, Dec. 11 next year. There are four games that will be played that day as part of the event.

Other games include the Iona Gaels against the St. Bonaventure Bonnies, the UMASS Minutemen against the Hofstra Pride and the Oklahoma State Cowboys against the Virginia Tech Hokies. The Basketball Hall of Fame retweeted the University of HoopHall revealing the games to confirm the event on Monday.

The Vols and Terps have only played each other four times, and neither have met since 1984. However, they have some deep connections. Let’s start with Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes. In the 1980s, Barnes was an assistant under Gary Williams with the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Coaching under Williams is how Barnes developed his ability to coach up-tempo defense and the midrange. He has run the flex offense plenty of times throughout his career, and it’s what helped to build his brand over the years. In fact, you could say it’s his main half-court set.

Obviously, Williams went on to coach the Terps for 22 years, where he enjoyed a Hall-of-Fame career that saw three ACC Regular Season Championships, an ACC Tournament Championship and a National Championship. He is credited with introducing the ACC to up-tempo basketball.

Another connection between the Vols and Williams is Bruce Pearl. Like Williams, Pearl coached under Dr. Tom Davis. Williams did so in the 1970s with the Lafayette Leopards and then the Boston College Eagles. Pearl attended BC when Davis was there and coached under him with the Stanford Cardinal and Iowa Hawkeyes.

A year after Williams took the Terps to their first Final Four, the same year he won the national title, Pearl got his first head coaching job in Division I, leading the Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers. Both coaches learned the flex, the press and the emphasis on transition buckets coaching under Davis, and Williams’ success created Pearl.

Of course, after four years at UWM, Pearl introduced the SEC to this up-tempo style with Tennessee basketball the same way Williams did nearly two decades before. Simply put, the Davis coaching tree involves Pearl and Williams directly and then Barnes indirectly.

Now there’s another player in the mix too. New Terps head coach Kevin Willard will be the one facing Barnes. Like Barnes did with the Providence Friars, Willard cut his teeth in traditional East Coast Big East basketball, coaching the the Seton Hall Pirates for 12 years.

Beyond the coaches, though, these teams have another connection. In the Vols’ only Elite Eight appearance and Maryland’s last NCAA Tournament after winning a conference regular season title, 2010, both lost to the Michigan State Spartans.

It should have been a Terps and Vols Elite Eight, but MSU upset UMD off a last-second three in the Round of 32. Then Rocky Top lost to Michigan State by one after a questionable foul for a trip to the Final Four. It would have been Pearl vs. Williams, a battle of Davis proteges.

As a result, it’s fitting that these two are facing off in New York of all places as well. The Big East connection and Barnes’ connection to Maryland’s greatest legend makes Tennessee basketball facing the Terps truly an overdue matchup given how long it’s been.