Tennessee men’s basketball has existed 80 years longer than Florida Atlantic’s program.

Tennessee ranks third all-time in the SEC for victories. Conference USA’s FAU hadn’t won an NCAA Tournament game until last Friday. The capacity of Tennessee’s arena is roughly 7 times the size of the cozy confines of FAU’s Burrow.

Tennessee has produced NBA All-Stars such as Bernard King and Allan Houston. No FAU player has ever made the NBA.

Yet after Thursday night’s Sweet 16 matchup at Madison Square Garden, the past was irrelevant. Because in the present, and in the world’s most famous arena, a vicious Atlantic wave of Owls soared into the Elite Eight with a 62-55 victory against the vaunted Volunteers.

Tennessee’s imposing No. 1-ranked defense folded in the second half as coach Dusty May and his scrappy No. 9 seed FAU squad (34-3) punched its ticket to face Kansas State thanks to a gutsy second-half run fueled by senior guard Michael Forrest, who scored 8 straight points in the spurt.

Tennessee (25-11) cooled down from the 3-point line in the second half and were out-rebounded by 4 despite their significant size advantage. Tennessee prides itself on dragging teams into the mud but just like they’ve done all season, FAU relied on its depth, moxie, and heart to compensate for size deficiencies.

SEC Network analyst Dane Bradshaw shared his thoughts on the loss for Tennessee on WJOX’s “McElroy and Cubelic In the morning,” which denied the Volunteers their first trip to the Elite Eight since 2010.

“FAU has a lot of guards out there, quick foot speed, knew how to dribble penetrate. Tennessee all year long, for the most part, there’s been a few exceptions, but they’ve been so good at just locking up their one-on-one assignment…,” Bradshaw said. “They were beating them off the dribble. They were requiring help in those rotations.”

FAU has been a prolific 3-point shooting team this season, so to couple that along with the inconsistency of Tennessee’s offense, Bradshaw didn’t feel safe with the 27-22 halftime lead. No Tennessee player finished with more than 10 points and FAU guard Johnell Davis (9-for-10) converted more free throws than the entire Vols team (7-for-12).

“They were missing some wide open looks. It made you worry because Tennessee still had a pretty small lead at halftime. As a Tennessee fan, anybody that’s watched, you know how Jekyll and Hyde their offense can be. Once FAU started seeing a few of those go in in the second half, and Tennessee just didn’t have enough guys of their own that can just break you down, get in the lane…They don’t have a lot of guys on the team that can create for themselves or for others.”

Despite the defeat, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes is grateful for the grit his team displayed this season.

“Certainly proud of the effort that these guys have given us all year, through tough times with injuries, but when it ends like this, it’s always disappointing because we want it all and came up short,” Barnes said.