Great setting, big crowd, Senior Day, home finale against Vanderbilt, opportunity for an advantageous spot in the upcoming SEC tournament – and Tennessee had almost nothing at the start.

On Saturday afternoon at Food City Center, Vandy was far more energized. It was not particularly charitable. Too bad, Tennessee, tough luck that Nate Ament couldn’t play and that a Vol or three didn’t feel good.

In several ways, the event was unusual. There are bad starts and worse ones. The home team lost the game at the beginning. It seemed a half-step slow at everything – except turnovers. Ja’Kobi Gillespie had three quickies. The Vols fell behind 15-2. They never caught up. They tried, oh how freshman Amari Evans tried.

Rick Barnes was asked what the heck happened. He wasn’t much help on why the game started as it did.

“This time of year, we’ve had enough of them to know that we’ve got to be on edge. You can’t be relaxed. You got to realize that everybody plays just as good, and better, if you’re not ready to play.”

The coach was more specific when he got to details.

“Turnovers … throwing it out of bounds, getting picked, all those plays, you can’t do that this time of year.

“Not establishing what we wanted to do. Not very good guard play. And when you do what we did to start a game, you almost have to play near-perfect basketball.

“When you play against a team as good as them, as well-coached as they are, and you dig yourself a hole like that, you’re fighting uphill the whole way.”

That was almost the summation. The coach thought of two other things.

“And we had too many breakdowns defensively, fouled too much.”

The Vols eventually launched a genuine comeback. The conclusion was interesting. The Commodores made mistakes but they held on. They won, 86-82.

Evans finished with 24 points, six rebounds and three steals. For too long, he was the lone warrior.

If all you count are points, Gillespie had 17. He missed 17 shots. He was one-for-11 on three-point attempts. He totaled five turnovers. He never surrendered.

The best Commodore was guard Tyler Tanner. The Vols couldn’t contain him. He is too quick. He scored 25. He hit seven of nine field-goal attempts. He was 2-for-2 on long shots. He made nine of 10 free throws.

A little too late the Vols rediscovered their inside attack. JP Estrella, shut out without a shot in the first half, scored 20 after intermission.

The Vols scored only 22 in the half. Vandy led by 10. After that, things went downhill. It was 51-34 with about 14 minutes remaining. That’s when things started to get better. Tennessee actually won the second half, 60-54. It stopped losing the ball. It surged ahead in rebounding. It hit 52.4 percent.

The 60 points were a record, most in a half in an SEC game in the Barnes’ era. Overall, Estrella and Felix Okpara had 10 rebounds each. Tennessee was charged with nine turnovers in the first half and only two in the second. Vandy ended up with 14.

The Commodores hit 27 of 32 free throws. The Vols made 14 of 21. Tennessee had more points in the paint – because of Estrella. Okpara scored eight.

Barnes was asked why Vol guards didn’t play through the big guys in the first half.

“I wish I could answer that … we’ve talked about it all year … there’s really no excuse … we know what we should be doing. We established that the other night (at South Carolina) … we thought we finally had the balance that we wanted, but evidently we didn’t … it is frustrating.”

The Vols didn’t really deserve a miracle but there were a couple of moments when they might have won the game. Vandy guards twice lost the ball in the final minute.

Barnes: “I told our coaches, as bad as we were, even to have a chance to get back in it, I’ve got to give our players credit for that. And at the end we had a chance. We got a great look to cut it to one.”

Tennessee is 21-10 and 11-7 SEC. As a No. 5 seed, it will play Thursday afternoon in Nashville. The opponent will be determined on Wednesday.

If the Vols can advance to the quarterfinal round, they’ll get a rematch with No. 4-seed Vanderbilt.

Marvin West welcomes comments or questions from readers. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com