Tennessee basketball fans may not know it, but these are the good old days
File this one under “Contemporary Tennessee Basketball Appreciation.”
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is only past the first weekend. Short of an historic Final Four appearance, a lot of Vol fans are going to gripe about their team exiting the bracket too early.
My mission is to remind folks that these are the Good Times (upper case). You want to moan and fire the coach? You should have been around in the '80s and '90s. I was.
For the fans who have derisively dubbed their coach “Regular Season Rick,” a question. Were you here in the days of “Regular Season Don,” “Regular Season Wade,” Regular Season Kevin,” and “Regular Season Buzz”?
Because the regular season was all there was.
To be fair to Don DeVoe, he was the coach of record for the program’s first NCAA tournament win, in 1979. Five years in a row, Tennessee advanced to the second round. On March 18, 1983, DeVoe’s Dale Ellis-led team beat Marquette in the opening round in Evansville, Indiana.
The program had a pulse in March.
And then it didn’t. For 16 years, almost a generation.
The Vols didn’t win another NCAA tournament game until 1999, beating Delaware in Jerry Green’s second season.
Big picture: In the span of 22 years from 1984 through 2005, Tennessee’s men appeared in the NCAA bracket only five times. Five.
There was a first-round loss in 1989, DeVoe’s last season. All four of Green’s teams made it from 1998-2001, but he still got fired.
Now, the Good Times.
Starting with the 2006 tournament, the Vols have played in 13 of the past 18 tournaments, including each of the last six.
Bruce Pearl made Tennessee relevant again, NCAA bids in each of his six seasons from 2006-11. That includes UT’s only Elite Eight and two other Sweet 16 appearances.
Cuonzo Martin’s third team advanced from the First Four to the Sweet 16 in 2014. Then he left.
After a three-year pause that included the 2015 Donnie Tyndall fiasco, Rick Barnes has coached the Vols to six consecutive tournaments, including this one. (COVID canceled the 2020 tourney.)
The last-second losses to Loyola and Purdue were heartbreaking. Horrid 3-point shooting was ugly and fatal against Oregon State, Michigan and FAU. I get the frustration.
But I also remember that era of Sunday nights after the bracket release, waiting to see if the NIT was going to call.
DeVoe’s final six seasons saw just the one NCAA bid in 1989 (a loss to West Virginia) and three NIT consolation prizes.
Wade Houston’s five teams got two NIT bids but never one to the event that matters.
I was invited to view the NCAA bracket show with Houston’s 1992 team in the locker room. At 19-15, 8-8 SEC, the Vols figured they were on the bubble.
One after another, the regional brackets came on the screen. No Vols. After the last one, freshman Jermaine Brown quietly asked, “Is that it?”
“Yeah,’’ answered a resigned Carlus Groves, “that’s it.’’
The current season is the 30th anniversary of Rocky Bottom − a 5-22 disaster in 1994 got Houston fired.
Kevin O’Neill came in and cleaned house. But his three seasons never produced a winning record, much less an invitation to dance.
Green capitalized on O’Neill’s recruiting to field winning seasons and land four straight NCAA bids. Only the 2000 team made the Sweet 16.
Buzz Peterson’s four teams, 2002-05, never made a bracket, peaking with a pair of first-round NIT losses.
All of that is almost ancient history now.
The Vols might not dance as far as you’d like. But at least you can count on them dancing. I don’t take it for granted.
Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Do Tennessee basketball fans know how good they have it?
