I know. You hated the officiating, Tennessee fans.

You hated that seemingly every time that Zach Edey got touched, he got a foul call. You couldn’t stand the fact that the All-American 7-footer drew 10 foul calls before he was finally whistled for his first foul. You couldn’t stand the fact that his giant steps somehow never resulted in traveling, or the fact that by the game’s end, Edey shot 22 free throws compared to just 11 for Tennessee.

I know, Tennessee fans. You hated the way that Elite Eight game played out because it felt all too similar to the November loss to Purdue in Maui, wherein Edey attempted a mere 17 free throws.

I get your frustration. Trust me.

But in your heart of hearts, you know that it wasn’t just the way that Edey was officiated. Sure, it helped Purdue reach its first Final Four since the Jimmy Carter administration, but “help” was what Tennessee needed more of if it was going to reach its first Final Four since basketball was invented. Like, help in the form of non-Dalton Knecht scoring options.

That’s why Tennessee is going home and not to Phoenix.

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Knecht could only do so much. As brilliant as Tennessee’s All-American was on the biggest stage — he finished with 37 of Tennessee’s 66 points — you could tell on that last contested drive to the basket that his legs were gone. Instead of rising and finishing at the rim, he didn’t appear to have the legs, and Edey swatted his shot (without fouling) to preserve the 5-point Purdue lead. Ultimately, Edey swatted away the Vols’ last chance of a victory.

Even in a game in which Edey only had that 1 blocked shot, he changed the entire flow of Tennessee’s offense.

Where were those other non-Knecht options? Outside of a Jordan Gainey 3-pointer that brought the Vols within 3 late, it felt like every drive was Knecht or bust. Jonas Aidoo seemed overwhelmed by Edey’s length on both ends of the floor, and he gave way to freshman JP Estrella down the stretch. Zakai Zeigler had open looks from 3-point range, yet he finished just 1-for-8 from beyond the arc. Josiah-Jordan James appeared to have things rolling in the first half with his 8 points, but then he was invisible in the final 20 minutes.

James was the X-factor for Tennessee, and for a bit, he looked like he could be that much-needed second scorer. When he made at least 3 3-pointers in a game, the Vols were 6-0 in 2023-24 and 18-3 in the past 3 seasons. But that third 3-pointer never came.

It probably wasn’t fair to expect much from Santiago Vescovi, who missed Friday’s game against Creighton with the flu and didn’t practice all week. He came off the bench and didn’t provide much more than a seal-off on a Knecht drive to the rack.

But add that to the list of things that didn’t go well for the non-Knecht Tennessee offense.

Don’t treat that as some sort of indictment on Rick Barnes. We can move past the whole “is he an elite coach?” question based on the fact that he had the Vols in just their second Elite Eight in program history. He just ran into an immovable object in Edey.

There’ll be discourse about Barnes’ decision not to double Edey early on. Aidoo had his hands full and Tobe Awaka learned the hard way that Edey was cut from a different cloth than Creighton’s 7-footer, Ryan Kalkbrenner, who was totally diminished in the Sweet 16 matchup.

Tennessee didn’t have anyone outside of Knecht who tried to force the issue and attack the body of Edey. Easier said than done? You bet. But that at least played a part in why the free-throw distribution played out the way that it did.

It was always going to take more than Knecht. As much as it felt like Knecht was capable of being the missing piece for the program’s first Final Four run, the Vols were never going to get there with 29 combined points from the rest of the roster in an Elite Eight game. Period.

That’s a tough pill to swallow because it’s easier to just blame the officiating. Could Tennessee have gotten more calls? Absolutely. But could the Vols have found other consistent offensive weapons at key points? No doubt. That’s easy to say in hindsight when any possession without a Knecht touch felt foolish with how much he was rolling. It’s tough for others to get in a rhythm when a guy takes 31 shots in a 40-minute game, and every one of them feels like it’s going in.

That’s why this tournament is such a beast. Tennessee knows that all too well.

You can be great all year and have your best player look like the best version of himself, yet you can still come up short of the ultimate goal. It happens. It’s unfortunate when it happens when one of the most uniquely maddening players of the 21st century is on the winning side. That’ll always be frustrating.

But more frustrating should be that a team loaded with multi-year starters turtled at the worst possible time. How much of that was the stage compared to Edey’s presence, that’s debatable. What’s undeniable is that Knecht needed more help than what he got. The 1-year wonder was a revelation from start to finish for Tennessee. One season or not, he deserves to be remembered as one of the best players in program history.

This team deserves that kind of legacy, too. It embraced the idea of an outsider stepping in and becoming the star.

Unfortunately, though, a star is only as good as his supporting cast.

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