Randy Smith
The Legions of the Miserable were out in full force late Saturday night after the Tennessee Volunteers were soundly beaten by Kentucky 86-69 at Rupp Arena. The loss snapped a school best 19-game winning streak, knocked the Vols off the top of the college basketball polls and sent many members of the Big Orange Nation into a frenzy. My message to those folks is, the Big Orange sky is not falling, not in the least.
Tennessee is still in first place in the SEC standings and the Volunteers are 23-2 overall on the year.
This is no time for panic because the loss really meant nothing in the great scheme of things. After hosting Vanderbilt in Knoxville on Tuesday night of this week, Tennessee will travel to Baton Rouge to face surprisingly good LSU on Saturday and they still have four more SEC games after that including a rematch with the Wildcats on March 2nd.
There is a possibility the Vols could lose another couple of games before the SEC Tournament begins the second week of March. There is also the possibility that Tennessee will not be a top seed in the NCAA Tournament. But those things do nothing at all to tarnish what has been a magical season so far. This team is really, really good and could be the first team in school history to make the Final Four.
When Kentucky had the game well in hand on Saturday night, several students in the partisan Big Blue crowd began to yell, " Underrated.....Underrated " That caused Wildcats' Coach John Calipari to immediately tell them to stop. In his post game press conference, Calipari stated that Tennessee was still the best team in the country. Meanwhile Coach Rick Barnes of the Vols said his team played too selfishly against the 'Cats. In other words, they failed to play as a team. I've said many times in the last few weeks, things are not perfect in Big Orange Country and something was going to bite them. The Wildcats took a big bite out of the Vols and now it's up to them to regroup.
A loss this late in the season can often time be a good thing. It can be an eye opener and allow a team to step back and refocus on their team goals. Barnes is the perfect coach to make his team see what mistakes they made against the Wildcats, then help them bounce back. The road the rest of the way will not be easy for Tennessee. Vandy, then at LSU, at Ole Miss, Kentucky at home, Mississippi State at home, then Auburn on the road will be a really tough gauntlet the rest of the way. And while the team needs to refocus, the fan base needs to do the same thing.....refocus on being the best most supportive group of fans we can be.