Tennessee guard Josiah Jordan James saw something out of place in the crowd Saturday morning at Bridgestone Arena.
The stands were spotted with a couple hundred fans who stuck around after it was announced that the game between Tennessee and Memphis had been cancelled concerning COVID-19 complications within the Tigers’ program. The announcement came just over an hour before tipoff.
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes took the stadium microphone to make an announcement of his own – Tennessee would stay and hold and intrasquad scrimmage for the fans who had traveled to the game.
“Our players wanted to do something,” Barnes said at midcourt following the cancellation. “They said ‘Hey can we stay and play?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll stay and play.’”
While warming up James noticed a young Tennessee fan sitting with his father, who was wearing a blue and gray Memphis Tigers jacket.
“Tell your dad he can’t be in here like that right now,” James said with a grin. “Tell your daddy to change his shirt.”
“Can’t be in here right now,” freshman point guard Kennedy Chandler added.
It didn’t take long for Chandler’s fellow teammates to make sure he wasn’t slacking on warm-ups, though.
“One, two,” junior forward Olivier Nkamhoua said a little louder towards Chandler. “Let’s go, baby.”
Tennessee players and coaches were disappointed but wanted to put on a good show for those who stuck around. When the scrimmage was over, Barnes and several Tennessee players took to the stands to take pictures and talk with fans.
Super-senior John Fulkerson even gifted a fan his own phone case. The family was celebrating the 15-year old’s birthday.
“There is no doubt we knew we would have a lot of orange in the building,” Barnes said. “We said before this is like a second home to us. We looked and early here before the game people were walking in. We had great preparation leading up to it. We were all excited about playing.”
Tennessee and Memphis have a storied history. A rivalry renewed would have seen its third and perhaps final game in a three-game series announced in March of 2018. The Vols took the first bout in Memphis before the Tigers evened the score in 2019 in Knoxville.
Both schools agreed to postpose the final game of the series to 2021 to be played in front of a full capacity crowd – a game that never happened.
According to Barnes, it’s unlikely to be played anytime soon.
“There is no way (the game can be made up) in our schedule with what we have,” Barnes said. “We have one more non-league game, then we break for Christmas for a couple days and we are into conference play plus we have the Big 12/SEC Challenge with Texas. We have no open dates.”
Amid the chaos, Fulkerson is only focused on the Vols’ next game Wednesday night against No. 8 Arizona at Thompson-Boling Arena.
“We think that the best way to handle this is for us and all of our fans to take out the frustration and all the energy you have built up and to bring it to TBA on Wednesday,” Fulkerson said during a live Twitter Space Saturday. “…What happened is in the past now, so we are already looking forward to our game on Wednesday.”
“What better way to pack TBA and go crazy on our home court in front of all our fans?”
