Adams: Vols not happy to March out

UT has plenty of basketball history, he said. It just doesn't have much in March.

It still doesn't.

And that's one reason Saturday's 80-73 loss to Wichita State will linger.

Never mind how many games you win during the regular season or what you do in your conference. March is what matters most in college basketball.

That's why this weekend meant so much to UT basketball. That's why next weekend would have meant even more.

March so often has been a missing month for UT basketball. The Vols hadn't qualified for the NCAA tournament since 2001; they had won two games and advanced to the round of 16 only once in their history.

But this March was different under UT's charismatic first-year coach. Suddenly, UT had a presence.

The Vols drew a No. 2 seed. Pearl was named national coach of the year by The Sporting News. Three ESPN camera crews followed Pearl and his team through the first week of the tournament. CBS aired a feature on the resurgence of UT basketball Saturday.

If the Vols could get that much attention in one week, imagine what they could have gotten with two. And they were so close.

They led the seventh-seeded Shockers 63-58 with 5:42 to play at Greensboro Coliseum. But in the last 5A 1/2 minutes, Wichita State, not UT, made the tough, clutch plays that determine who advances and who doesn't in the NCAA tournament.

They won the way UT has won so often this season — by executing down the stretch. That's another reason the loss won't be quickly forgotten.

In the postgame locker room, UT didn't resemble a team that had just lost a game. It resembled a team that had just lost a game it should have won. There's a big difference.

Center Major Wingate, the biggest talker on UT's team, fought back tears and spoke so quietly you could barely hear him.

"They're just not better than us," he said. "That's why it hurts so much."

UT didn't get beat by Wichita State's best players. It got beat by its next-best players.

PJ Couisnard, who made 32.8 percent of his 3-point attempts during the regular season, was 4-for-4 against the Vols and scored a team-high 20 points. Power forward Kyle Wilson, who usually plays second fiddle to Missouri Valley Conference MVP Paul Miller, had 17 points and six rebounds, and made three of five 3s.

Sean Ogirri, Wichita's hottest shooter and second-leading scorer, was only 3-for-7 from the field. Miller often looked overwhelmed against Wingate.

"I think he was pretty much shook," Wingate said of Miller, who only made one of eight field-goal tries. "When I blocked his first two shots, I knew he wasn't going to be a factor."

Pearl wasn't surprised by how well Wingate played against Miller. His confidence in that matchup was evident at Friday's press conference.

Pearl probably was more confident at how UT matched up against Wichita State than against 15th-seed Winthrop, which lost to the Vols 63-61 on Chris Lofton's last second-shot in Thursday's first-round game.

The team was confident, too.

"They didn't have as many athletes as we did," Wingate said. "The only thing they did do was shoot the ball, and they did it well today.

"We matched up very well with them. That's why it hurts so bad."

It will hurt just as much next weekend when the tournament goes on without them.

March lasted longer than usual for UT basketball. But it didn't last long enough for a team that was on the verge of making school history.