Vols look to surpass last year’s second round exit in NCAA tournament

For the second year in a row, ‘Selection Sunday’ found hopeful Tennessee players and coaches gathered around a television anxiously awaiting the deliverance of their March-Madness fate. The Vols were nothing short of amazed at the announcement of the number two-seed they received from the selection committee just one year ago. The up and down Vols of the 2006-07 season, however, landed a far less astonishing number five-seed in this year’s version of ‘The Big Dance’. The 65 teams that fill out the NCAA Tournament brackets were announced on National television Sunday evening following the last of the conference tournaments. On paper, logical reasoning would put Tennessee in a more vulnerable position this year than last with the lower placement. But the layout of the South Bracket in which the Vols were placed could provide some room for a post-season push for the streaky Vols. “It’s an exciting time of the year,” said UT head coach Bruce Pearl. “This doesn’t get old. This doesn’t’ ever get old. “When you look at all the good teams in country that didn’t get invited to this, you have to appreciate how difficult it is to get invited to this dance and you have to feel very appreciative and feel very blessed, and I do. But that lasted all of about five minutes. Then you shift gears and start thinking about your first match-up and your opponent.” Tennessee’s lone senior, Dane Bradshaw, will be playing his final game(s) as a college athlete. His loyal spectators, along with the rest of the Volunteer nation, will only have to transit to Colombus, Ohio for the Vols’ opening game(s). First up for Tennessee is Long Beach State. The 49ers come to Columbus via sunny California. They achieved their automatic tournament berth with a win over Pacific in the West Coast Conference Tournament Championship Game The 49ers are not only a senior-laden squad, they are a senior-dominated team. All five starters are playing in their final season, which could provide some problems for the inexperienced Vols. The ‘Niners’ play much like the Vols though. Any one of their starters has the ability to shoot from the outside or drive to the basket. The Vols’ will have to be precise when shooting against a team that finished the season in the top 10 nationally in scoring offense (80.3 ppg). The past NCAA Tournament match-ups between the 5-seed and the 12-seed have long been a stage for upsets. In fact, a 12-seed has defeated a favored 5-seed in the first round for six-consecutive years. On paper though, Tennessee might have the best match-up of the four games that match 5-seeds and 12-seeds in this week’s first round. The Vols have been tabbed as an eight-point favorite by Las Vegas odds makers. “If we play well we’ll beat (Long Beach State),” Pearl stated. “If we don’t play well we won’t. That’s why they’re in the tournament.” Several factors appear to be an advantage for the Big Orange, not the least of which is location. Travel distance from Knoxville to Columbus is rather minimal (conservatively six-hours of drive time), and, perhaps more importantly, the Vols’ have a bit of familiarity with Columbus. The not-so-seasoned Vols often found themselves wide-eyed when traveling this year, which is a common shortcoming for young teams. Tennessee did not win its first Southeastern Conference road game until the final week of the regular season when it won two—at Arkansas and then at Georgia. However, the Vols’ most impressive road performance of the year, arguably, came in Columbus against the Buckeyes. While other teams could struggle becoming accustomed to the city, Columbus could be more of a second home to the Vols than anyone they face. Tennessee’s head coach, Bruce Pearl, knows as well as anyone that overlooking your first-round opponent is an inexcusable mistake. “If we’re going to make another step in the direction we want to go we have to advance this weekend,” Pearl said Monday at his weekly press luncheon, “and to do that we need to win two games and to do that we’ll need our fans. “I’m excited about (playing in) Columbus,” the coach added. “I’m excited about the location. For us to advance (Fan support) is going to have to be a factor this weekend in Columbus.” As the coach of Milwaukee-Wisconsin, Pearl led his team to the Sweet 16 as an underdog just two years ago. Now that Pearl is on the opposite end of the spectrum, he, along with his assistant coaches, plan on preparing for each team they could potentially face in-depth without looking past any of them. “I will prepare almost exclusively for Long Beach State this week,” said Pearl, explaining his coaching staff’s agenda in the days leading up to the Vols’ Friday NCAA Tournament opener. “If I get to the point in a day or two that I feel like I have a chance to spend some time looking at the other two teams in our bracket then I’ll spend a morning doing that. “I have each of my three assistant coaches assigned to work on each of the other three teams in our bracket, so I’m able to almost exclusively focus on our first game.” If the Vols win their first-round game, they will face the winner of Virginia (4) and Albany (13) on Sunday. Virginia is the obvious favorite to advance, and is led by point guard Sean Singletary. Singletary is as good as it gets when it comes to experienced guards. Albany is also a guard-laden team. The Great Danes join Virginia and Long Beach State as teams that lack size down low, which bodes well for Tennessee. As hard as it is to believe, Tennessee will have a size advantage no matter who they play through the first two rounds. If the Vols advance to the Sweet 16, they will travel to San Antonio and most likely go up against Ohio State. The Vols lost 68-66 on a last second Mike Conley Jr. three pointer when the two teams met in January.