100 years of basketball

Other than his son Allan’s scoring expertise, the Wade Houston years (1989-94) didn’t produce an abundance of memories for Tennessee basketball. But come SEC tournament time, you never knew what drama might unfold. From 1991-93, Houston’s Vols were involved in ...

When the 1967-68 basketball season opened, Tennessee wasn't sure who would replace the scoring punch of departed All-American Ron Widby. But the Vols knew exactly who was going to get the ball in the scorers' hands.

Tennessee has played basketball for 100 years. A century of competition has produced countless great performances. Many aspects of the game, however, are counted. Statisticians meticulously track the action and record the numbers for posterity. This wasn’t always the case. ...

The term “March Madness” wasn’t yet part of the sporting vocabulary in 1967, but an excitement definitely gripped Tennessee basketball that season. As the 1966-67 season played toward conclusion, the Vols were ranked in the top 10 and bearing down ...

From New York City they came. Tennessee basketball never before or since had two players side-by-side like Ernie Grunfeld and Bernard King. The “Ernie and Bernie Show” dazzled for three seasons starting in 1974-75 and closing in 1976-77. On Feb. ...

When he retired from a long NBA career in 2000, Dale Ellis was one of the most accurate and prolific 3-point shooters in league history. As for what a 3-point line would have meant in Ellis’ collegiate career at Tennessee, ...

Thompson-Boling Arena has seen some shoot-outs over the years, but never anything like the game that was played there 19 years ago this week. When the final horn sounded on Feb. 10, 1990, there were 232 points on the scoreboard ...

Ron Widby's single-game scoring record of 50 points stood for 20 years until Tony White poured in 51 points against Auburn on Valentine's Day in 1987.

America in the mid-1950s saw any number of milestones that would impact the coming decades. Disneyland opened in California. In Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery bus. ...

When Florida was winning those back-to-back national championships, the Gators were fortunate in one regard: Playing UCLA and Ohio State, respectively, had to be easier than beating Tennessee. And Dane Bradshaw was nowhere near to drive a stake in their ...

As far as LSU is concerned, it was the day time stood still. From Tennessee’s standpoint, it was a thrilling road victory. The date was Feb. 20, 1982, a Saturday afternoon. The place was LSU’s Assembly Center in Baton Rouge. ...

The name is J.P. Prince, not P.J. That was the message Tennessee’s sophomore guard underscored last February after what was arguably the biggest men’s basketball game ever played in the state of Tennessee. The FedExForum was Ground Zero for college ...

He wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill recruit. In 1961, A.W. Davis attracted a Who’s Who list of college coaches to little Rutledge, Tenn. Arvis Watsell Davis was the all-time Tennessee state high school scoring champion by the time he fired his ...

Eight years ago this week when South Carolina came to Thompson-Boling Arena, the Gamecocks served as a grudging footnote to Tennessee basketball history. The Vols were ranked No. 4 in the nation. It was a balanced team with inside and ...

Kentucky and South Carolina, both headed to Thompson-Boling Arena this week, share a niche in Tennessee basketball history — one neither the Wildcats nor Gamecocks enjoy. In a five-season span during the Ray Mears Era, the Vols notched upsets of ...