It had the makings of another one of those nights for Tennessee.

“Those nights” always included a drastic offensive drought in the NCAA Tournament. You could set your watch to them. At some point before the Elite Eight, Tennessee would endure a horrendous 8-minute shooting stretch, blow a lead and ultimately blow a chance at becoming the first team to reach the Final Four in program history. Four of Tennessee’s 5 NCAA Tournament exits under Barnes were games in which the Vols failed to score 70 points.

Saturday could’ve been another one of those nights.

Check that.

Saturday should’ve* been another one of those nights. Somehow, it wasn’t.

In 2024, wherein 3-point shooting is as popular as owning a smartphone, Tennessee’s second 3-pointer came with 5 minutes and 38 seconds left in the Round of 32 game against Texas. It came off a baseline out-of-bounds play wherein All-American Dalton Knecht rose up and splashed a 3-pointer that felt like such a breakthrough that it should’ve prompted the band to start playing “Rocky Top” mid-play.

RELATED: Be sure to track the latest March Madness odds via SDS’s Tennessee sportsbooks as the Vols gear up for the Sweet 16 next week.

Of course, that moment wasn’t the difference in the game. Superb Tennessee defense and some timely free-throw shooting played a much bigger part in making sure it wasn’t another one of those nights. Fittingly, it was Knecht who stepped up to the free-throw line and made all 4 attempts to put the game on ice.

Consider that a reminder. Just as the vast majority of this Tennessee season has told us, these Vols aren’t those Vols.

Those Vols would’ve watched their season come to an end. Instead, they had the nation’s best pure scorer come off that screen and fire away as if Tennessee hadn’t missed a shot all night … even though it was 1-for-21 from 3-point range to that point. Knecht’s lone 3-pointer of the night was the biggest of his long, but now historic college career.

Maybe there’s an advantage to having a guy without the Tennessee history rattling around his brain. That’s not to say that that hinders Josiah Jordan-James and Santiago Vescovi. It was Jordan-James who splashed home a 3-pointer on the very next possession. Those guys, along with Jonas Aidoo, who hit 3 free throws in the final minute, are key parts of the first Tennessee team since the Bruce Pearl era to make consecutive trips to the Sweet 16.

But Knecht was and is the difference-maker for these Vols. Winning a game in which he shot 5-for-18 in a 62-point Tennessee output wasn’t supposed to be the blueprint for March. That was Tennessee’s fewest points in a winning effort all season.

Credit Texas for making that happen. The rim protection from Dylan Disu made a major difference, as did the pesky perimeter defending from Chendall Weaver. There were no easy buckets. Even Knecht’s 2-handed slams were contested.

Well, I suppose this one wasn’t contested:

That was Knecht’s easiest bucket of the night. Shoot, it was probably Tennessee’s easiest bucket of the night.

The box score said it was a rock fight.

  • Combined 10-for-48 (21%) from 3-point range
  • Combined 29 turnovers
  • Combined for 47 first-half points

The eye test, however, said it was a heavyweight fight.

“It was the exact kind of game we told our guys it would be,” Barnes said in the CBS postgame interview. “We told our guys it would come down to the last 2 minutes and it did.”

Saturday night wasn’t about getting revenge for Barnes against the program that fired him. But it’s hard to ignore that unlike Barnes’ Vols, Texas is still searching for consecutive Sweet 16 berths for the first time in 20 years. Sure, a decade of that is on Barnes’ tab. Lord knows that’s why he got the boot in Austin.

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There’s a decent chance that there’ll come a time in this NCAA Tournament wherein we’ll hear the “Rick Barnes in March” crowd rise to its feet. Anything short of bringing Tennessee to its first Final Four in program history will prompt that. That’s reality. He brought that on himself by having a team with realistic expectations of making a deep run.

After sinking those aforementioned clutch free throws, Aidoo doubled down on that notion by saying in the postgame CBS interview “we’re ready to make a deep run.”

There’s a lot that’ll determine if that can happen. As impressive as it was to pull out a win when all signs pointed to a vintage Tennessee offensive collapse, the Vols need more offense from Vescovi and Jordan-James. On opening weekend, they had 17 combined points on 7-for-19 shooting, only 3 of which were 3-pointers. One would think a deep run would include more efficient days from Zeigler, who was a menace on the defensive side but as Barnes said, he also struggled with his pacing early against Texas.

Oh, and Knecht being the best player on the court would be a nice common denominator for all future Tennessee games.

On Saturday, Knecht was the best player on the court when it mattered. Without him, who knows what those headlines would’ve looked like.

The “Rick Barnes in March” crowd cleared its collective throat. It was ready to be heard loud and clear.

But it wasn’t one of those nights.