Monday Musings: Heartbreak on the hardwood

And you extraordinarily wonderful folks know just what that means. It’s time to step into the cockpit, buckle up, and blast off into the Tennessee Vols-related world of thoughts floating around inside my mind.

Let’s get on with it…..

1) Well…..it’s over. And I’m still sick about it. Tennessee’s best look at a Final Four came up short 72-66 against Purdue and Zach Edey. And the officials, depending on who you ask.

Edey poured in 40 points and 15 rebounds. He shot 22 free throws, twice as many as Tennessee’s entire team. And I’ll say that many if not most of those free throws were earned. But there are several instances of him throwing elbows for loose balls and getting whistled for absolutely nothing. Going back to the Sweet Sixteen, Edey had gone 35 game minutes without getting whistled for a foul. That’s until he committed a hard one with 9:40 left in the game on Sunday. THAT’S IT. I’m sorry, but that’s BS, and no one can convince me otherwise. As physical as he is on both ends, it didn’t shake out on Tennessee’s end the way it clearly should have. I don’t know if Tennessee wins if that whistle is fairer, but it sure as heck made it tougher on them. Terrible.

2) And now, I have to be sad for Rick Barnes, Josiah-Jordan James, Santiago Vescovi, and Dalton Knecht (and Colin Coyne, to be complete). The press conference and locker room scenes were pretty upsetting after the game. Tears, broken voices. Players who clearly left everything they had out on the court. Players who played for each other. The respect and love that they had for each other revealed an unspoken motivator as far as they high level of play for the season. I just wish they had one more week together as a team. Even freshman J.P. Estrella was in tears for the seniors after the game. You’d be hard pressed to find a more tight-knit locker room in the country.

3) Had the tournament been seeded correctly – Tennessee was revealed to be the #5 overall seed by the committee – the Vols would have ended up in Los Angeles in the West region. Potentially against a team in Alabama who they beat twice already. Instead, they were dumped in with Purdue, a significantly tougher one seed. And with the fight that Tennessee showed, one has to wonder if they weren’t stacked against a physically superior player – and a group of referees willing to cater to him – if Tennessee would have found that path to Phoenix. Regardless, it’s objectively stupid that the top two didn’t get the last one seed, which was North Carolina. Oh well now, but still doesn’t make sense.

4) In other news on the hardwood, Kellie Harper was fired by Danny White on Monday. It was unquestionably the right move. Tennessee has slowly slid from a place of national prominence to a level of mediocrity that wasn’t going to cut it any longer. I wonder if knocking off South Carolina in the SEC tournament might have given her one more shot (not sure it would have), but a complete defensive lapse made that moot anyways. I wish her the best and thank her for her service, but it’s time to get someone in town that can lift the program up to a higher place. There are plenty of good coaches in the sport. Worth it to find out if one can do a better job.