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#10: UT demolishes the other UT in Austin
By rbk | October 6, 2008
This post is part of a series counting down the top moments of the Bruce Pearl Era. There will be 5 moments per week, with #1 posted on October 16– the first day of practice for the Vol basketball team.
December 17, 2005: It looked like a the perfect setup for a blowout. Texas, ranked #2 just a week earlier, was angry about losing at Duke a few days before. The Longhorns had a 33 game home winning streak against non-conference foes. They had Daniel Gibson, P.J. Tucker, LaMarcus Aldridge, and A.J. Abrams.
Tennessee, under first year coach Bruce Pearl, had lost its top two scorers from a 14-17 team and had struggled at home against Louisiana-Lafayette and Appalachian State. In their lone game away from home, the Vols had narrowly escaped from Murray State in Nashville.
It would end in a 95-78 blowout, with just one tie and no lead changes during the game’s 40 minutes. UT was virtually unstoppable, cruising to a 20-point halftime lead and never being challenged in the second half. Tucker, Aldridge, and Abrams would all score in double figures in a losing effort.
Wait, back that train up. Losing effort? That’s not exactly how this one was scripted. The winning UT wore orange, not the brownish pseudo-orange they like to don in Austin, and the losing UT had merely a walk to the dorms instead of a 1000 mile flight home. That’s not how the rebound game was supposed to go, certainly not with a team as weak as Tennessee in town.
The way it happened was almost as glorious as the fact that it did. The Vols turned the game’s only tie at 2-2 into a 23-5 romp, getting scores from five different players in the process. The run also included three steals and three 3-pointers, certainly a sign of things to come for the new Vols. The closest Texas would ever get was an 11-point deficit with less than three minutes remaining in the game, but a 6-0 Tennessee run put to rest any thoughts of a comeback.
The Vols were led by Chris Lofton’s 21 points (five threes) and C.J. Watson’s 17. Major Wingate and Andre Patterson would chip in 12 apiece, matched by newfound Sixth Man JaJuan Smith’s 12 points on four threes. Tennessee would be outrebounded considerably (another sign of things to come) but forced 22 turnovers including 11 steals. It didn’t hurt that the Vols hit 12 of 24 threes.
Why is this #10? You know the answer to this. It was Tennessee’s first major win of the Bruce Pearl era, and it came on the road when nobody was expecting it. An ESPN audience got its first taste of the hell that Bruce Pearl would unleash in the form of a full-court press so aggressive that getting the ball in bounds, much less past halfcourt, was always tough. They also saw a barrage of threes from some guys named Lofton and Smith and more hustle than you would think possible out of a bunch of 6-foot-nothing guys that few top teams had wanted out of high school.
Texas didn’t know what hit them, and the rest of the country probably still didn’t recognize that this was the first of a whole series of body blows and haymakers to come in the next three years. This was the beginning, Tennessee basketball’s first steps on its exodus out of the NCAA basketball wilderness. Plus, we beat the hell out of Texas. If that doesn’t deserve the top 10 in everybody’s list, what does?
Thanks to Otictac1 for the following video, which includes live comments from Bob and Bert and Bruce’s thoughts on why the game was so important to his team.
Topic: Uncategorized | Tags: Vol History
October 6th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Unfortunately I missed this game live, and still remember coming home and checking the score and yelling Holy [Explitive]. I definately agree that this game was the start of the excitement.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Bruce has to replace 58% of his scoring because of graduations and dismissals. Somehow, Gary Parrish has us rated in the Top 10 on his Ridiculously Early Preseason Top 25 And One list. How on earth can he do that?
UT’s top recruiting class (#7 Rivals, #18 Scout), being a great coach, high quality returning players (regular plus from redshirt) - hmmm, maybe, But, mostly, we are believing in Bruce and his coaching team and his system.
UT’s demolition of ut was one of the first step’s in getting the nation to believe that is possible. Beating ut badly was surprising, to be honest, but pretty dadgum exciting.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
This surprise win came before Coach Pearl had resurrected my dormant passion for UT Basketball. So, like Eric, I also missed seeing this one live (or even taped). Furthermore, after suffering through the disappointment of the 1990’s and the early 2000’s, this win got me interested; however, I was cautious about seeing it as anything more than a “fluke”. Surprise wins of years past would get my hopes up for a while only to be dashed by dismal overall seasons.
Then in the following weeks I heard about the Vols beating Florida. Something was going on over there. From that point on, my passion for the Vols has been revived. But, it was this win that first caught my attention and had me wondering whether it was an aberration or the sign of things to come.
October 13th, 2008 at 7:59 am
[...] was a revenge game for Texas, who had been humiliated at home by the upstart Vols the year before. Tennessee jumped out to an 11-5 lead less than three minutes into the game, but at that point Texas [...]
October 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
this was the one that started it all in my book…