2021 SEC Tournament

#52
#52
Thunder Good-Oil said:
TN has never been to 3 consecutive finals. Actually the 2 year streak only happened once before, 1936-37. Of course there was a 27 year break until 1979 when Devoe got the double bye (along with LSU) in the 10 team league and won both games for the championship. TN only had to beat Auburn (playing in their 3rd straight game) and KY playing in their 4th straight game.
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at rupp arena IIRC
 
#55
#55
VolArmy74 said:
The most baffling thing is that Wade Houston had one of the best runs we've ever had in the SECT.
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Nice draw that year. Only had to beat Miss, Miss St, and GA before getting whipped by Wimp in the championship game. Allan Houston was the tournament MVP despite being on the runner up. Big factor, Kentucky didn’t participate after they were caught cheating which made Miss State the 1 seed. TN upset Miss St in round 2 and avoided Bama and LSU in the 3rd round. Luck is a big factor in single elimination basketball.

But yes. Wade is the only TN coach in the modern era to win 3 games in an SECT.
 
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#56
#56
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Nice draw that year. Only had to beat Miss, Miss St, and GA before getting whipped by Wimp in the championship game. Allan Houston was the tournament MVP despite being on the runner up. Big factor, Kentucky didn’t participate after they were caught cheating which made Miss State the 1 seed. TN upset Miss St in round 2 and avoided Bama and LSU in the 3rd round. Luck is a big factor in single elimination basketball.

But yes. Wade is the only TN coach in the modern era to win 3 games in an SECT.
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There was no such thing as a good draw for that team. It was 3-15 coming into the tournament in SEC play. They were 0-6 vs the three teams they beat and had lost by nearly 30 to MSU and more than 20 vs Georgia in the regular season. The defense was probably the worst of any Vol team ever, it gave up 107 and 108 in back to back SEC games vs Georgia and Vandy at one point in the season and closed the last 3 weeks of the season allowing 90+ each game.

The most shocking thing was they didn't just win the tournament games, they beat the three teams handily. They beat Ole Miss by 9, Miss State by 17 and Georgia by 20. Those three games and the shocking win vs Kentucky were the highlight of the entire Houston era.
 
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#57
#57
VolArmy74 said:
There was no such thing as a good draw for that team. It was 3-15 coming into the tournament in SEC play. They were 0-6 vs the three teams they beat and had lost by nearly 30 to MSU and more than 20 vs Georgia in the regular season. The defense was probably the worst of any Vol team ever, it gave up 107 and 108 in back to back SEC games vs Georgia and Vandy at one point in the season and closed the last 3 weeks of the season allowing 90+ each game.

The most shocking thing was they didn't just win the tournament games, they beat the three teams handily. They beat Ole Miss by 9, Miss State by 17 and Georgia by 20. Those three games and the shocking win vs Kentucky were the highlight of the entire Houston era.
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You won’t be convincing me that having Bama, Florida, Auburn, and LSU on the other side of the bracket while having Mississippi, Miss State, GA, and Vandy on your side with KY sitting out isn’t a good draw.

11 of the 15 SEC loses were single digit.
 
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#58
#58
Unconditional Surrender said:
Why did Pearl suck in the SEC tourney at Tennessee? That has always baffled me.
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Me too. Bruce is able to get a team to play above their collective ability often, especially in big matchups. But then when we'd play the "mundane" stuff and tourneys it was more difficult to translate. Man, did that guys teams make some memories tho!
 
#62
#62
Thunder Good-Oil said:
You won’t be convincing me that having Bama, Auburn, and LSU on the other side of the bracket while having Mississippi, Miss State, GA, and Vandy on your side with KY sitting out isn’t a good draw.

11 of the 15 SEC loses were single digit.
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Miss State came into that tournament on a 10-2 run to close the season. In those 12 games they beat a top 20 LSU team twice, a top 10 Kentucky team, beat Alabama and beat Auburn twice by 20 points. Miss State, Vandy and Georgia all made the NCAA T that season. It was the tougher side of the bracket.

That doesn't really even matter. When a 3-15 league team goes on a miracle run to the SEC T game it wasn't draw related. Had they played as miraculously as they did those three games they would have ran either side of the bracket.
 
#63
#63
VolArmy74 said:
Miss State came into that tournament on a 10-2 run to close the season. In those 12 games they beat a top 20 LSU team twice, a top 10 Kentucky team, beat Alabama and beat Auburn twice by 20 points. Miss State, Vandy and Georgia all made the NCAA T that season. It was the tougher side of the bracket.

That doesn't really even matter. When a 3-15 league team goes on a miracle run to the SEC T game it wasn't draw related. Had they played as miraculously as they did those three games they would have ran either side of the bracket.
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Yea, Miss State was such an awesome #1 seed in the SECT that they were one-and-done in the NCAAT after getting destroyed by Eastern Michigan of the MAC.

When Shaq’s LSU and Bama with 4 NBA players are on the other side of the bracket you’re still not going to convince me that the draw wasn’t a critical part of TN’s run to the final. Vandy and Miss State are garbage for the top 2 seeds on TN’s side.

GA, Vandy, and Miss State were 0-3 in the NCAAT in 1991.

3-15 with 11 single digit loses and half of those were very high scoring games.
 
#64
#64
I would like to see Tennessee play Florida in the game on Friday and then play Alabama in a rematch in the semifinals because we owe them an ass whooping
 
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#66
#66
Border Vol said:
The 1979 SEC Tournament was in Birmingham

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How neat to again see Bert Bertelkamp score the final two points in ‘79.

A few years later, I had a friend who worked at a Knoxville radio station. He arranged for us to have lunch with Coach DeVoe at The Copper Cellar. I drove from my home in Johnson City for the big occasion. When we sat down to eat, the coach asked where I was from. I said, “I drove from Johnson City.” He thought I said Jefferson City (he was thinking Missouri, not TN)...and asked, ”You drove from Missouri to have lunch?!!!” Must have been my hillbilly accent OR the noisy restaurant. Times were different then...lunch with the UT basketball coach and no one even stopped by the table to speak with him for the hour we were there.

Another example of accessibility: I do not recall the year (the early 90’s), my wife and I went to Lexington for a UT v. UK football game. We stayed at the Marriott a few miles from the city. On Friday night, my wife and I went to dinner, came back to the hotel and were taking the elevator up to our room...a man was coming down a short hallway headed to the elevator and I quickly held the door for him. Once inside and the doors closed, my wife, myself and JOHN WARD were traveling to the 2nd floor together. We said hello and I told him how grateful I was for his abilities. We continued to speak after leaving the elevator and before heading in opposite directions to our rooms. He wanted to know where we were from, did we have kids, etc. I was a little overwhelmed—even though I was at least 40 years old by then. Only a brief, serendipitous encounter; one that I remember as if it were last week. In fact, I recall the 90 seconds with JW better than the hour with Don DeVoe.
 
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#71
#71
Unconditional Surrender said:
Why did Pearl suck in the SEC tourney at Tennessee? That has always baffled me.
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If you want to get really frustrated go watch the end of the 2009 SECT Championship. Miss St. tried to hand us the game and we kept dropping it. I was so sure we were going to end the drought that year and we played with such low energy that game.
 
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#73
#73
VolsSportsFan said:
If you want to get really frustrated go watch the end of the 2009 SECT Championship. Miss St. tried to hand us the game and we kept dropping it. I was so sure we were going to end the drought that year and we played with such low energy that game.
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Then we played Okie State and played the dumbest basketball game I’ve ever seen.

People point out 2011 as a disappointment but it made sense. They found out Pearl would be fired and everybody went into the tank. That 2009 team should have been much better.
 
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#74
#74
VolArmy74 said:
There was no such thing as a good draw for that team. It was 3-15 coming into the tournament in SEC play. They were 0-6 vs the three teams they beat and had lost by nearly 30 to MSU and more than 20 vs Georgia in the regular season. The defense was probably the worst of any Vol team ever, it gave up 107 and 108 in back to back SEC games vs Georgia and Vandy at one point in the season and closed the last 3 weeks of the season allowing 90+ each game.

The most shocking thing was they didn't just win the tournament games, they beat the three teams handily. They beat Ole Miss by 9, Miss State by 17 and Georgia by 20. Those three games and the shocking win vs Kentucky were the highlight of the entire Houston era.
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My memory might be fuzzy, but we were also in the Bama game at halftime, iirc.

20 minutes away.
 
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