With the final seconds of Friday afternoon’s SEC Tournament quarterfinals game against Alabama ticking away, Jordan McRae sat with his face buried in a towel on the Tennessee bench.
The junior and team’s leading scorer had fouled out moments earlier for just the third time all season. A microcosm of the game the Volunteers’ played.
Nothing went right.
Following the loss the team sat dejected in the Bridgestone Arena locker room, thinking about what a win could have done.
“No shots were falling for us,” Trae Golden said Friday. “It just wasn’t our night. Now we wait to see what happens on Sunday.”
With a chance to put their NCAA Tournament fate squarely in their own hands, the Vols (20-12) saw their postseason hopes all-but slip through their fingers with a 58-48 loss to the Crimson Tide. That scenario materialized Sunday evening when Cuonzo Martin’s squad failed to hear its name mentioned amongst the tournament field for the second straight season — relegating Tennessee to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) once again.
“It’s tough for our guys,” head coach Cuonzo Martin said. “It’s was was one of those times where you’re asking ‘Where we are going to go play in the Tournament’ and it doesn’t go your way.”
Much like 2012, Tennessee closed the regular season as one of the hottest team in the country — winning nine of its last 11 this season and eight of its 10 in 2012.
Wins down the stretch against Kentucky, then No. 8 Florida, LSU and Missouri — all top 100 teams — were not enough to bolster the Tennessee body of work, as the losses shone brighter than the victories in the committee’s eyes.
A midseason loss to Virginia and a tough stretch of five-straight losses at the beginning of conference play ultimately hurt Tennessee’s résumé.
2013 Chairman of the NCAA Tournament Committee, Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski, stated during an interview with CBS that the Volunteers’ inability to win on the road and multiple losses to Ole Miss were factors in the committee’s decision to not give UT a bid.
Martin had a different take on the matter.
“If I’m not mistake they said we lost twice to Ole Miss, but Ole Miss is an NCAA Tournament team,” Martin said. “If you look at the whole field, everyone has lost to an NCAA Tournament team. When you win your last nine of 11 games, you have a strong RPI, strength of schedule, you go on the road and play teams … it seems like at times it’s every year something different.”
“But I tell our guys ‘We have to keep it out of the committee’s hands.'”
Improving preseason and out of conference schedules around the league is a point that Martin believes will help the SEC in the future receive more bids, in light of the fact that a smaller conference in the Mountain West Conference received five tournament bids in comparison to the SEC’s three.
“We as a league have to do a better job across the board with our scheduling strength in the preseason,” Martin said.
“You look at some leagues and you’re pretty good in preseason and not as strong in conference play and you get in the tournament.”
“It’s about a league getting in the tournament, not a single team.”
Though his team will not have an opportunity at a national championship, the second year head coach believes much can be accomplished and learned during the NIT.
“I’ve seen it go a lot of different ways watching team’s from afar,” he said. “You’d like for you’re team to be ready, but again, it’s emotionally taxing for your team when you get to such a point … you’re asking yourself ‘Where are we going for the NCAA Tournament’, then you don’t get in. That’s disappointing. So I can understand it from a player prospective.”
The Volunteers will host Mercer (23-11) Wednesday, March 20 at 8 p.m.
“They are good guard play, have some veteran guys and it’s going to be a good test for our guys,” Martin said.
If the Volunteers win, they will have to travel to play the winner of Brigham Young University (21-11) and Washington (18-15).
