I’m going to be honest, this one hurts. It hurts because this was our year to finally break the SEC Tournament curse. It hurts because the game was so close. And most of all, it hurts because we may have just lost our number one seed.
Everything was set up perfectly for the Vols to finally win the tournament. Kentucky and Vanderbilt had already been put out, we didn’t have to play in the dreaded Georgia Dome, and we had already beat Arkansas earlier in the year.
A lot of contributing factors went into the loss, but most importantly was the lack of defense. However, the defensive intensity was certainly affected by foul problems, especially with our big men, which allowed Arkansas to score in the paint all night long.
On offense we actually played pretty good. The shots were falling for the majority of the game, until the end when everything seemed to rattle out. Lofton’s missed free throw was especially crucial, and Jajuan Smith’s wide open three just barely missed as well. Obviously those are two shots that we must make if we expect to win the tournament that really matters.
The question now becomes, Will we lose our number one seed? I thought at first we may not, but now I believe we will. First of all, Memphis and North Carolina are locks. Then there is UCLA who looks like a one seed now by barely winning (Getting all the calls) their last four games to claim the Pac 10 tournament title. Which leaves one spot left for Kansas, Texas, or UT. Kansas and Texas will be decided on the floor in the Big 12 Tournament’s Championship Game. If Kansas were to win they would likely get the one seed, because they only have three losses, and if Texas wins they might get it because they would have beat Kansas twice, Tennessee, and UCLA. I personally don’t know what they should do, but it would mean a lot for Tennessee to still get that one seed.
At least this was just the SEC Tournament and not the Big Dance. We still won the SEC Title, and were still in it for the National Title. This meant a lot to Tennessee, but our ultimate goal is still in reach. Lets get out there and play some d.
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Defense like we played the past two days won’t get us anywhere.
As Brent Hubbs pointed out over at VQ: Tyler, CLo and JaJuan were 22-of-33 for 67 percent shooting and 67 points. If we got THAT kind of production, how many Vols fans would have put plenty of money on us playing Sunday?
I know I would have. This is sickening because I really wanted to pull off the regular season and tourney championships. Like Pearl said this year and Donovan said last year, the regular season is the REAL championship, but I wanted this one equally as badly. Even if we don’t win the NCAA tourney (which is a crapshoot) we always could have looked back on this.
Arkansas simply wore us out down low the whole game, and the officiating was completely one-sided. I think at one time down the stretch, the officials called a foul on us in something like 9 of 10 possessions. We couldn’t defend because Williams fouled out, Tyler had four, Duke had four and Chism had three. We were hamstrung.
That said, Arky made the big plays when it had to. Great, great game. Tough, tough loss.
Hope we enjoy our 2 seed.
I guess we now find out just how much the Committee values RPI and SOS…