Tennessee basketball's Final Four frustration shared by 4 other SEC programs
This second week in April is always bittersweet for me. Spring is blooming, but I know it’ll be seven months before I watch another college basketball game.
So while the final horn of the 2023-24 season is still echoing, I’m cleaning out my Tennessee March Madness notebook.
Unlucky 13: The number of power conference schools who have never reached the men’s Final Four was reduced by one this year – Alabama.
That leaves 13, including, of course, Tennessee.
Alabama is the third SEC program in eight years to finally crack the Final Four, joining South Carolina in 2017 and Auburn in 2019.
The unlucky 13 are: Tennessee, Ole Miss, Missouri, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt from the SEC; Clemson and Virginia Tech of the ACC; Northwestern and Nebraska of the Big Ten; TCU, BYU and Central Florida from the Big 12; Arizona State of the late, great Pac 12.
As for the SEC, besides Alabama, Auburn and South Carolina, the other two one-timers are Mississippi State (1996) and Georgia (1983).
Kentucky has 17 appearances, the most recent in 2015, which is an eon to frustrated Big Blue fans. Arkansas has six, but none since 1995. Florida has five, 2014 the most recent. LSU went four times, most recently in 2006.
Big Problems: Zach Edey, Purdue’s 7-foot-4 center, was the immovable object that prevented Tennessee’s Final Four breakthrough. In hindsight, I reviewed how the Vols had handled previous NCAA tournament meetings with similar giants.
None was as problematic as Edey.
Tennessee encountered 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson of Virginia in second-round games in 1981 and again in 1982. Like Edey, Sampson was the national player of the year both of those seasons.
In 1981, Sampson logged only nine points on 4-of-13 shooting against a sagging Tennessee defense. But the rest of the Cavaliers combined to shoot 67 percent in a 62-48 Virginia win.
Sampson was more of a presence in 1982, scoring 19 points, with nine rebounds, two blocks and two big late baskets in a 54-51 Virginia win.
Of course, the game was different then, with no shot clock or 3-point shot.
In 2007, Tennessee encountered another celebrated 7-footer in Ohio State’s Greg Oden in the Sweet 16 in San Antonio. Oden was the national defensive player of the year and would be the first pick of the 2007 NBA draft.
But Edey was a veteran senior, Oden just a freshman. Against UT, he made just two field goals, scoring nine points in 18 foul-plagued minutes.
Oden wasn’t the reason Ohio State won but he made a game-deciding play, blocking Ramar Smith’s driving shot at the buzzer to preserve an 85-84 Buckeye win.
Fresher in memory is 7-foot-2 Hunter Dickinson’s 27 points and 11 rebounds in Michigan’s 76-68 second-round win in 2022.
All-time Opponent: Edey’s 40 points in the 72-66 loss to Purdue is by far the most by a Tennessee opponent in the tournament.
I’ll bet you couldn’t guess whose infamous mark he broke. I couldn’t either until I looked it up.
Jordan Burns scored 32 points for Colgate in a first-round 77-70 loss to the Vols in 2019. Burns was 8-of-13 from 3-point range. I have no image of him at all in my head.
I do remember Ohio State’s Evan Turner scoring 31 in a 76-73 Sweet 16 loss to the Vols in St. Louis in 2010. It might have been 34 had J.P. Prince not blocked Turner’s final attempt.
The toughest one-two punch was Carsen Edwards (29) and Ryan Cline (27) for Purdue in a 99-94 overtime win in 2019.
Now, on to spring football.
Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Odds and ends from Tennessee basketball's March Madness run
