GREENSBORO, N.C. — No question, the effort was there.

In many ways, Tennessee played good basketball Saturday. The proof pops up in various corners of the box score.

And yet, something was missing, something that added up to an 80-73 loss to Wichita State.

Thus, Tennessee will be missing when the NCAA tournament moves to the Sweet 16 round in Washington, D.C.

I'm convinced this was a game Tennessee wins in December, January and most of February.

Give the Vols a 63-58 lead with 5:42 left back in the throes of winter and this one goes in the "W" column.

Tennessee did a lot of things well in this unexpected joyride of a season, but one thing the Vols did superbly was close out teams.

When it came time to close out Wichita State, however, they stumbled.

"I think we were in a position where we had them where we wanted them,'' said UT junior Dane Bradshaw.

"I guess we just didn't execute. I'm not really sure what happened.''

That the players aren't sure what happened is a telltale sign Tennessee had lost the magic touch that carried it so far, so fast in its first season under coach Bruce Pearl.

The Vols, a team expected to go nowhere, hit a giddy 19-3 on Feb. 15. A week later, they clinched a share of the SEC East title with an inspired win at Florida.

We haven't seen that team since.

There was a glimpse of it during a second-half rally at Vanderbilt. Another flash Saturday put the Vols in position to survive and advance.

But glimpses and flashes weren't enough in the crucible of March.

At the end of the day, it wasn't that the legs were gone, the energy reservoir depleted. The Vols played hard to get past Winthrop on Thursday. They played hard to overtake Wichita State on Saturday.

What was gone was the confidence.

"We got out of character,'' said UT center Major Wingate, who played like a warrior both games here.

"We're used to playing under pressure. We love to play under pressure. It just didn't go that way for us today.''

The analysis of those last five minutes of the season will show that Chris Lofton, the clutch shooter, missed shots.

And that Dane Bradshaw, the catalyst of so many game-changing plays all season, has been diminished by the wrist injury he tried gamely to ignore.

That ball ended up in the wrong spots at the wrong time to produce easy buckets.

And that the inability to defend undermined UT's offense. The Vols shot 54.8 percent the second half, but the Shockers shot 66.7.

"We couldn't get stops,'' said Pearl. "We put way too much pressure on our offense to score every time down the court.''

That's a pressure it might have handled in peak form, but not Saturday.

Perhaps it was too much to expect that Tennessee sustain that magical chemistry all the way to the end. Given the team's limitations, it was, after all, a fragile magic.

That the Vols weren't at their razor-sharpest in March is bad timing, but shouldn't overshadow an entire season of good times.

"I would be happier if we won,'' Pearl said, "but I couldn't be prouder. You had a whole state that got through a winter on the backs of these kids.

"And we played pretty good basketball this weekend. We didn't play bad.''

Still, they didn't play with that magical touch.

But Pearl's benediction Saturday on his first season included a vow that the Vols will be back — and not so fragile.