John Fulkerson
John Fulkerson certainly looked like a Tennessee player who was exiting his final regular-season home basketball game on Sunday.
His tears were flowing before he stepped off the Thompson-Boling court following a 65-54 victory over Florida and they continued afterward. A photo of an emotional Fulkerson, sitting on the edge of a sideline table afterward, alone for a moment with his thoughts, was posted on social media and tugged at the emotions of UT's fans as well.
The redshirt senior forward also sounded like someone who would go through only one senior day.
He conceded that the thought of going through another, which is his option because of the COVID-19 pandemic, would be awfully tough.
“I just can’t put it into words, because it’s memories that I’ll have forever and relationships that I’ll remember forever,” he said.
“I really can’t put into words what my time here at Tennessee has meant.”
No matter, he made a gallant effort at offering some perspective during a postgame interview with Bob Kesling and Bert Bertelkamp on the Vol network. The Kingsport, Tenn., native never thought he’d be in this position but made it happen anyway.
“I say that to say that to all the kids out there, if you don’t think you can accomplish what you want to, or you think your dreams are too big or you think you can’t make it, forget all that. If you really just put your mind to it and work hard, man, anything can come true. Because never would I have thought that I could be in this position.”
Fulkerson looked more like, well, Fulkerson in scoring 14 points, grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out four assists. His stat line was noteworthy because he hadn’t been his usual self for more than a month. In the previous seven games, he had scored in double figures just once and scored 39 points total. In that span, he had gathered as many as seven rebounds just twice.
After falling behind by 14 points in the first half, the Vols reeled in Florida, possession by possession. Defense helped whittle the deficit to five by halftime. Their effort continued in the second half. The Gators, who were playing without leading scorer Tre Mann, made just six field goals after halftime and three of them were scored within the first three minutes after the break.
During a loose ball scrum early in the second half, guard Santiago Vescovi hit the deck, secured the basketball and called timeout before getting tied up. In doing so, he performed a spot-on impression of Fulkerson.
It was more important, though, that Fulkerson looked like his old self. He was the biggest difference between a satisfying victory and another bewildering loss, which was where the afternoon was heading at the start.
“I told him at halftime, if he’ll get back to playing with that force, we’ll get back exactly (to) where we want to be,” UT coach Rick Barnes said. “This week if he can just get that and get it bottled up, it’s going to be good for him and be good for us.”
This week, Tennessee will be the No. 4 seed in the SEC tournament and open play on Friday. Might help if Fulkerson approaches any postseason game like another senior day. Judging by Sunday, it couldn’t hurt.
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who covered University of Tennessee athletics from 1988-2019. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.