Tennessee survives late scare from Louisiana for first-round NCAA Tournament win
Tennessee sure made it interesting, but the No. 4 seed Volunteers (23-10) survived an upset-minded Louisiana team Thursday for a 58-55 first-round victory at the Amway Center in Orlando.
The Vols will face No. 5 seed Duke — winners of 10 straight — on Saturday for a spot in the Sweet 16.
Tennessee shot 46% for the game but failed to hit a shot from the field at any point in the final 5:31 of the game. A jumper from Jahmai Mashack put UT up by 7 points. A pair of free throws 34 seconds later put the Vols up by 9 with 4:57 to play.
From then on, Louisiana just chipped away at the lead. A pair of 3s from the Ragin’ Cajuns’ Jalen Dalcourt brought Louisiana within 5 points with just 70 seconds on the clock. Free throws from Kobe Julien with 23 seconds left clawed Louisiana within 3.
Tennessee missed 5 free throws in the final 5 minutes, any of which could have helped with coach Rick Barnes’ anxiety as his group tried to stave off another double-digit-seed upset on a day full of them.
Louisiana was just unable to make up that last little bit of ground.
The Vols opened up play with streaky stretches of brilliance in the first half. Over a 3-minute span midway through the first half, they turned an 11-10 deficit into a 19-11 lead. Then, over the next 6 minutes, Louisiana used an 8-0 run to tie the game. UT was able to close the final 4:42 of the first half on an 11-0 run, though, and took a 30-19 lead into the locker room.
Tennessee opened up the second half by outscoring Louisiana 13-6 over the first 6 minutes and change. The lead grew to as many as 18 points before Louisiana punched back with a 13-0 run of its own to get within 5. Julien scored 11 of his 15 points over that 3-minute stretch.
Tyreke Key led the Vols in scoring, with 12 points and 4 boards in 31 minutes. Mashack added 11 points and 3 assists. The Vols had 16 assists on 21 makes, but they also had 18 turnovers.
Louisiana was led by 16 points from Jordan Brown.
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Tennessee sportsbooks are live in the Volunteer state since November 1, 2020. Tennessee was the first SEC state to legalize sports betting.
Survive and advance, sure.
What a lousy performance.
It won’t surprise me at all if we beat Duke.
Frank Constaza said it best; serenity now, serenity now!
“It won’t surprise me at all if we beat Duke.”
That would be awesome if that happens.
But it won’t…
As usual you don’t have a clue as to what might happen. Who are the little pups playing?
Themselves
LeghumperU is angry because his fav player killed someone.
A win is a win, and the jitterbugs are exterminated. Go TN
Thank you wolfman. Congrats on the win. Very well played balanced game last night. Keep on truckin, but we comin this weekend in baseball…to freeze.lol
Ugly win is better than a pretty loss.
True and hey, we lasted longer than A&M and AZ.
Still lapping up those moral victories, congrats gw
What time does Georgia play?
We played in Indy on Jan 9th around 7PM, didn’t you hear?
Moral victory? Yep.
Literal victory, too? Yep.
Georgia wouldn’t be good enough to play in the CBI, let alone the NIT.
I deserve that…very nice win today, congrats Vol fans…
Ok, here is how you know Barnes has man and zone issues. Of when to run one and the other. The zone was was working in the first half. ULL got no three pointers and this was a team that lived off of them. For reason’s I will never understand is you come out in the second half and go away from that, only to see your offense stale down the stretch and threes allowed ULL to get back in it. Eighteen point lead with this team used to end up in a blowout win. Abhorent decision for this. Vescovi was in foul trouble and had to sit most of the first half. Is that is sole reason for going zone? Than once Vescovi came back in the second half it was man to man and the ULL threes starting falling. Uros made no real attempt to get in front of Brown. Brown made him a non-factor in contets at the rim. Bad communication in the first half in turnovers. The shocking thing here is the silver lining that we can actually win a game turning the ball over 18 times, and get an 18 point lead. If it’s not broken coach, don’t fix it. Most offensive minded coaches stick with what’s working. Barnes will go against that based on foul trouble and this blows leads. Takes the offensive rhythm out of the game and we go cold. Also, it sure doesn’t feel like, “all those players in this rotation are 60% or better free throw shooters”. On the night it seemed Mashack with the supposedly lowest free throw shooter percentage was the best at free throw shooting. “Komwa”, missing multiple free throws. At one point this season he was 10-10 from the field. Key did a lot more running around and looked more like ZZ doing it. This is a team that can beat anyone if they limit threes and be way more aggressive in shooting the ball. They are better than they think inside the paint but Barnes seems tell them to be more aggressive shooting but changes things right when TN starts to make runs. Glad we got the win but can’t do any of these bad things against Duke. At least we weren’t Texas A&M last night.
GREAT observations…all of them. I’ll boil it down. Why does RB seem to always reward success by thwarting it? I really like the guy, but he need to lay down on a couch and let someone figure out why he is so self destructive.
he Needs…..ha. is there a way to edit your own comments? I’m new to this board and notice I keep making some grammatical errors but don’t see an “edit” button.
Yet another outlet falling for the false narrative and referring to this team as “Louisiana”. Deluded folks in Lafayette think this will give them panache or cachet.
No matter what the school’s SID says, and no matter who falls for it, the school is NOT the “University of Louisiana”.
In 1984, following approval from the Board of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities (now the UL System), what had been the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) tried to officially changed its name to the “University of Louisiana”, which was overturned less than a month later by an act of the state legislature. It reverted back to USL.
The school was renamed in 1999 to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL-Lafayette, or ULL).
Right, because the legislature, conference, and media are all catering to those “deluded folks in Lafayette” so they can call themselves…. “Louisiana”? Did I miss something?
I was there when they changed from USL to ULL. We called it ooo-la-la. If you’ve ever spent time in Lafayette, you know those are some of the most grounded down-to-earth people around.
Why can’t RB figure out how to coach the last five minutes of a game? Why doesn’t he just hire someone else on his staff do jusst THAT? It would make such a difference if he would. Instead, the Vols are always gonna make things interesting……by design. Teams know always have a chance against us last 5 minutes, so just THAT alone helps them do it. Love ya RB, but learn some new tricks man.
PLEASE beat Duke….VOLS. If you do nothing else…PLEASE beat this arrogant ACC team. Tennessee’s team…like all the rest before it….has the ability to go all the way. I truly believe that. But, they lack superior floor coaching. That is the missing X factor. RB is very good…but not great. He could be. He just refuses not to be. I believe its that simple.