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Where Tennessee baseball’s 2022 season ranks among all-time Vols choke jobs

By Caleb Calhoun

The Tennessee dugout after their loss to Notre Dame in the NCAA baseball Super Regional championship game in Knoxville, Tenn. on Sunday, June 12, 2022.Kns Ut Baseball Notre Dame
The Tennessee dugout after their loss to Notre Dame in the NCAA baseball Super Regional championship game in Knoxville, Tenn. on Sunday, June 12, 2022.Kns Ut Baseball Notre Dame /
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24 Mar 2000: Joseph Forte #40 of the North Carolina Tar Heels gets ready to pass the ball as Isiah Victor #44 of the Tennessee Volunteers during the NCAA South Regional Game at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. The Tar Heels defeated the Volunteers 74-69. Mandatory Credit: Elsa Hasch /Allsport
24 Mar 2000: Joseph Forte #40 of the North Carolina Tar Heels gets ready to pass the ball as Isiah Victor #44 of the Tennessee Volunteers during the NCAA South Regional Game at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. The Tar Heels defeated the Volunteers 74-69. Mandatory Credit: Elsa Hasch /Allsport /

8. 1999-2000 Tennessee men’s basketball

Three years into the job, Jerry Green was loaded with talent as Tennessee basketball’s head coach thanks to Kevin O’Neil’s 1997 recruiting class and the classes he added to it. After two straight NCAA Tournament appearances, the Vols in 1999-2000 won a share of the SEC Regular Season Championship for the first time since the 1980s.

They were the No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and they were eliminated in the Sweet 16. On paper, that doesn’t seem like a choke job, and it’s certainly not what happened to Tennessee baseball this year. However, how things went down in the tournament changes that.

The top three seeds in the Vols’ bracket all lost, so they had a clear path to the Final Four. They faced the No. 8 seed North Carolina Tar Heels in the Sweet 16, not the UNC program you know now, and they had a nine-point lead in the second half.

That lead then collapsed, and UNC pulled off the upset, words that are crazy to say out loud. If the Vols had won, they would have faced the Tulsa Golden Hurricane in the Elite Eight and a Florida Gators team they swept during the regular season in the Final Four, so they had a clear path to the title game, but they blew it with this loss.

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