A basketball version of “The Ides of March” arrived a few days early and engulfed both Tennessee basketball teams on Saturday.
Long ago, the phrase referenced March 15 on the ancient Roman calendar. It was known for being a religious holiday until Julius Caesar was assassinated on the date in 44 BC. Since then, the expression has evolved into being associated with misfortune and doom.
The basketball misfortune was undeniable and sweeping in its scope. First, the Vols senior day at Thompson-Boling Arena was spoiled by hot-shooting Kentucky, which scored an 85-81 victory.
The Wildcats torched the nets and the Vols with 15 3-pointers. Guards Reed Sheppard and Antonio Reeves, who each scored 27 points, combined for 10 of the treys. Sheppard was 7-for-10 from behind the arc.
Meanwhile, within an hour of the Vols’ finish, the Lady Vols’ rally from a 23-point deficit against undefeated No. 1 South Carolina in the SEC women’s tournament semifinals didn’t prevent an agonizing conclusion. The Gamecocks’ Kamilla Cardoso, a 6-foot-7 center who had never hit a 3-pointer in her career, banked in a trey from the top of the key to beat the buzzer and win the game, 74-73.
The doom factor is still to be determined. What do the results foreshadow for these teams regarding their final postseason fate?
While it’s hard to thumb past the damage done by the Wildcats’ shooters, they are capable of breaching the best of defenses. They scored 92 in their first meeting with Tennessee. The Cats are the wildest of all wild cards, capable of winning this week’s SEC tournament in Nashville and going deep in the NCAA tournament.
Given Kentucky’s profile, Tennessee’s more pressing concern going forward was the imbalance in its scoring. Dalton Knecht scored a career-high 40 points but nobody else had more than 17. Five Vols who logged a combined 99 minutes, 42 seconds of playing time, collectively scored 13 points. Veteran guard Santiago Vescovi scored zero, missing all five of his field goal attempts.
With the Vols down three in the final seconds, Knecht slipped to the floor while making a curling cut. Josiah Jordan-James was left to take the 3-point shot for the tie but missed. During the CBS telecast, analyst Bill Raftery said: “I think I would’ve waited for (Knecht) to get up.”
By comparison, the misfortune was more deeply felt in the moment by the Lady Vols. Whether it was a matter of suspect strategy or poor execution, their defense on the final shot was questionable. With just 1.1 seconds on the clock, they didn’t guard either the inbounds pass or Cardoso.
“I wanted Tamari (Key) to be in the paint; so they couldn’t get a pass to the paint,” Harper said. “We were trying to get Rickea (Jackson) back there in the play. Obviously at the end of the game like that, everyone is a shooter because you could luck one in in that moment. We didn’t get where we needed to to get that defended.”
The Lady Vols’ overall play, though, fostered more optimism than doom, both Saturday and during Friday’s victory over Alabama. They were able to get both of their top scorers – Jackson and Jewel Spear – going at the same time. Jackson pulled double duty against South Carolina with eight assists to go with her 22 points.
Their rally also suggested a capability to punch above their seeding in the next tournament.
“I’ve got a tough group in that locker room,” Harper said. “Can’t say that’s how I would have defined them earlier in the year, but they have really taken on that challenge.”
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who has covered University of Tennessee athletics since 1988. He is a 2022 inductee to the Tennessee Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.