ST. LOUIS — In Bruce Pearl’s second year at Tennessee, he brought his Volunteers into Manhattan for the early-season NIT and, as a Boston native, he possessed special feelings for Madison Square Garden.
“Holy ground,” Pearl said yesterday.
The Vols, though, committed all sorts of on-court sins in terrible losses to Butler and North Carolina.
“We didn’t show up,” Pearl recalled. “I wanted to honor the basketball with the way we played.”
Instead, Pearl saw how far away his program was from the big-time. His team let him down with its lackluster showing and there were virtually no Orange-clad fans in the seats making the trip to offer support.
“We looked like an SEC football school trying to play basketball filling out the field,” Pearl admitted. “It was embarrassing.”
Three years later, Pearl and the six-seed Volunteers (28-8) look like national title contenders with a rabid following. They are in the Elite Eight for the first time in school history and today in the Midwest Regional final face No. 5 Michigan State (27-8) for the right to head to Indianapolis for what would be their first Final Four.
To get here, the Vols edged second-seed Ohio State, 76-73, after forward J.P. Prince blocked Evan Turner’s 3-point attempt at the buzzer, a play the Buckeyes believed was a foul.
“It was clean, they are just sore losers,” Prince said.
If experience and “being here before” means anything Tennessee is in trouble, as the Spartans and coach Tom Izzo are seeking advancement to their sixth Final Four in the last 12 years.
“Some people have us as an underdog and to us it’s a joke,” senior guard Bobby Maze said. “It drives us even more to succeed. Every game we’ve played in the tournament we have been picked to lose. That’s funny.”
There was no way to envision the Vols producing the best season in school history back on the night of Jan. 1, when the entire program might have come crashing down. Senior forward Tyler Smith — Tennessee’s best overall player — and three teammates were arrested on misdemeanor drug and gun charges.
Smith, averaging 11.7 points and 4.7 rebounds, was kicked off the team. Center Brian Williams was suspended nine games, guards Melvin Goins and Cameron Tatum for four. Pearl admitted he wondered if his club might fall to last place in the SEC, but at its most depleted upset No. 1 Kansas.
Pearl was an assistant at Iowa and credits Tom Davis for shaping his coaching philosophies. His success at Division II Southern Indiana got him a Division I head-coaching gig at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he made the Sweet 16 in 2005 to propel him to Tennessee. Pearl hasn’t missed the NCAA Tournament in five years in Knoxville.
“How far have we come when a Jewish man can be a head basketball coach in the SEC?” Pearl said jokingly.
The next step is no laughing matter. When Izzo says “I love March,” he means it, as he’s 5-1 in regional finals. This run might be the most improbable, considering the Spartans in the first half of their second-round victory over Maryland lost point guard, leading scorer and team leader Kalin Lucas to a torn Achilles tendon.
“I don’t think this team was as close to each other, I don’t think we relied on each other,” Izzo said. “It culminated at halftime of the Maryland game. They bonded and tried to do something not only for [Lucas] but also for the program and the team.”
