A sparse crowd sat in silence while the Commodores built an early lead in a contest being played without any particularly noticeable skill or ambition on the part of either team.
By the end of Vanderbilt’s bizarre 73-65 win over the Vols, it felt like a Peterson-era season.
As Bruce Pearl’s predecessor from 2001-2005, Peterson led the Vols into college basketball’s wilderness to a pair of NIT appearances while compiling an underwhelming overall record of 61-59.
By coming up short to the deft-shooting Commodores on Thursday, UT fell to 14-13 (6-9 SEC) and confirmed its demise from dark horse NCAA Tournament contender to something much closer to what preseason pundits expected from a team in a rebuilding phase with a first-year coach.
For a squad once discussed as a Big Dance bubble team, even the NIT now looks improbable.
Donnie Tyndall would not say outright that his team’s days as an overachiever are over, and, barring an unlikely shakeup at the bottom of the SEC standings down the stretch, UT will finish the season above the 13th place in which they were predicted.
But the late season drop-off for a team that once sat at 12-5 (4-1 SEC) is disappointing nevertheless, and losses that transpired like Thursday’s did only deepen the sense of frustration accompanying the reality that UT could not quite fulfill the role of Cinderella this season.
The Commodores (16-12, 6-9 SEC) executed a turnaround for the record books by following up a 19-point first half performance with an 84.2 percent second half shooting clip.
Combine the bizarre nature of Vanderbilt’s Jekyll and Hyde performance with the heightened emotions surrounding what is truly an intrastate rivalry, and you get a loss that should be hard to stomach for UT fans.
Tennessee’s season is far from a failure, the SEC Tournament still provides a glimmer of hope at the end and Tyndall has a done a fine job, but a season that once appeared heading for something improbably positive is now exactly what everyone thought it would be at the beginning: Peterson-esque.
Buzzer beater: After the Vols completed a 76-73 overtime victory against the Commodores in Nashville on Feb. 11, Vanderbilt guard Wade Baldwin took issue with harmless remarks made by UT senior guard Josh Richardson.
This time it was Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings who took issue with Baldwin. Stallings issued a firm reprimand for an apparent taunting instance that the freshman guard launched into once the game went final.
“We will not do that, not get by with that,” Stallings said in his postgame press conference. “We believe in sportsmanship, and that’s not a part of who we are, who we’re going to be. He better understand that’s his one and it better never happen again.”
David Cobb is a senior in journalism and electronic media. He may be reached at [email protected].
