Vols climb polls after upsetting Florida

Before a sell-out crowd of 18,870 at Thompson-Boling Saturday, Head Coach Buzz Peterson saw his Tennessee Volunteers overcome deficits in both the first and second halves to overtake the then-fourth ranked Florida Gators 66-59. The Vols have now won six consecutive games and have climbed to a No. 28 ranking in this weeks College RPI after the win over the Gators improved their record to 15-6 overall and 7-3 in the conference. There was much speculation at the post-game press conference whether or not the Vols will make their debut in the AP and Coaches top 25, which comes out the first of the week. “Again, I can’t tell you how proud I am of these young men,” Peterson said at the press conference. “Florida is a very good ball club. They had some shots that just didn’t fall and that happens. But I don’t want to be ranked. That stuff doesn’t matter to me. Just look at the stones in the stream and focus on the stones.” Peterson said that the sell-out crowd, the largest since a Kentucky game in the late 1990’s, played a significant role in Tennessee springing the upset. “I have to say that the biggest key was the crowd support,” the coach stated. “One of our kids said ‘coach, that brings chills to me, to see this place full like this.’ Since I’ve been here for a year and a half, this was the best crowd that I’ve seen in here.” The Gators came out red hot from the field and buried the Vols in an 8-0 hole before sophomore forward Brandon Crump rammed home a dunk to give Tennessee their first points with 17:10 left. Freshman point-guard C.J. Watson hit a baseline trey on the Volunteers next offensive possession to make it 8-5 That would be the theme through the first half; Florida did just enough to stay on top. Tennessee twice tied the game at 23-23 with 5:35 left, and again at 25-25 with just under two minutes left, but the Gators continued to shoot well throughout the first 20-minutes, and held a 29-28 halftime lead. “I didn’t like the tempo in the first half,” Peterson stated. “I told our guys at halftime that we need to slow it down. We told them to just keep fighting because we’re going to win this game on the defensive end. Florida’s a great shooting team and we told our guys to get to the shooter on the catch.” The Vols took their first lead in the second half on a Ron Slay three-point play with 19:17 left. Florida answered and Crump hit a five-footer before Florida reeled off eight straight points to put them up 43-35 with 15:00 left. Tennessee then embarked on a 9-1 run that was capped by a Watson baseline trey off a Thaydeus Holden assist to make it 46-42 with 11:40 left. Crump scored four-straight on a lay-in from in front and two-free throws to tie the game 48-48. The play of Crump as a compliment to Slay underneath has been a chief ingredient to the Vols emergence as a legitimate contender for the NCAA Tournament. Crump, who had his best offensive performance of his career with 19-points against the Gators, also emphasized the teams philosophy of taking it one game at a time. He was one of the players who were pumped up to see a full house waiting on them when they left the locker room. “The fans and students supporting us helps a lot,” said the soft-spoken Crump. “Them showing us that they believe in us gives us confidence. We’re looking at it one game at a time though. We have South Carolina Wednesday and then Alabama comes here Saturday. We’re taking it one game at a time.” With Florida still connecting from the outside, it was all the Vols could do to keep within a safe distance as the game approached crunch time. Tennessee took the lead for good when senior guard Jon Higgins nailed a trey from the left wing to make the score 51-50 with 5:10 left. From there Slay tallied four in a row, Crump swished a 15-footer and Higgins hit three-free-throws after being fouled on an attempt behind the arc. Higgins tosses made it made it 62-57 with 1:46 left and the Vols, the top shooting free-throw team in the conference, hit their charity attempts in the last minute to salt away the win. Peterson has come to count on Slay, the SEC’s leading scorer, to get his points, but the coach was particularly pleased with the play of Crump and Watson. “We knew that they were going to come at Slay,” Peterson said. “Brandon is a mature young man and you don’t have to tell him more than once. He came out and had a great game tonight. “I love the ball in CJ’s hands,” he continued. “That’s why we recruited him. His maturity level in the last two-months has been remarkable. He’s really helped us out. It’s so important in the college game to have a point guard who can handle it and get it into peoples hands, and he’s proven that he can do both of those.” *Slay brothers update: Ron Slay said after the game Saturday night that younger brothers Patrick and Chris are both doing fine. Seymour High School fans will remember that the brothers played football and basketball for the Eagles while attending the high school before moving back to their native Nashville this year. Ron Slay said that Patrick is about to sign a football scholarship to play defensive back at Murray State, and Chris is playing football and basketball at Brentwood Academy. *Carolina Buzz: A different kind of buzz is swarming around talk radio and Internet chat rooms of late. It seems that with North Carolina Tar Heel Coach Matt Daugherty not meeting certain expectations in Chapel Hill, fans and media have mentioned Peterson, a former Tar Heel guard, as a potential replacement. Peterson has made no suggestions that he is concerned with anything other than directing his current team “down the stones in the stream” and into a successful college basketball program. But as long as Peterson keeps winning, his name will no doubt be brought up in connection with job openings. Or in this case, potential job openings.