The world is warming up to help officiate tonight’s Tennessee basketball game.
Jay Bilas started it. The ESPN analyst is a Duke man. He tried to explain away Duke’s loss to the Volunteers by blaming it on the officials. He said the game was called as if it was hockey and that Tennessee committed flagrant fouls that were not called flagrant fouls.
TV analyst Seth Greenberg said amen and did everything except give out the addresses and phone numbers of Kipp Kissinger, Michael Greenstein and AJ Desai. Seth said they should not be officiating the sweet 16, and implied how bad or worse they were.
Florida Atlantic coach Dusty May tried to be funny. He said he would need to study Australian rugby before facing off against Tennessee.
Oh no, he said on Wednesday, when all concerned had gathered in New York. He didn’t mean that as criticism of the honorable Rick Barnes and his aggressive style of defense. It was a warm and glowing compliment.
“I say that in the most complimentary way possible. Coach Barnes is a legend. And it hasn’t changed. When I was at Florida, it was the same way. It was hard to make a pass, let alone score a basket against them.”
May said he was confused about the name of the game he needed to study. It was Australian rules football, not rugby, he tried to link to the Vols – as a compliment.
And May hadn’t seen the Tennessee-Duke game when he made his attempt to influence officiating. He hadn’t heard that officials reviewed video and still believed there were no flagrant fouls, just tough, physical basketball.
We all know warm and friendly Uros Plavsic would never aim knockdown elbows at the freshman Dukies. No way would he try intimidation.
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May said he guessed what he said was taken in different ways.
“If you said that our team is extremely physical, extremely aggressive and extremely intense, I would tell the staff and the players that you guys are doing a great job, because that’s what I want them to say about us defensively.”
Tennessee has the nation’s top ranked defense in adjusted efficiency.
One Owl said they’d have their hard hats.
“We know Tennessee is physical but we are too.”
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Vols were asked if they had previously played at the historic Garden. Santiago Vescovi remembered the 57-52 loss to Texas Tech on Dec. 7, 2021.
“It was an awful shooting night for both teams, not a pretty game. Hopefully we’re going to be a little bit better for this game.”
Josiah-Jordan James said the Vols had tried to forget Texas Tech but not the Garden.
“I know there are a lot of great basketball players who come here, talented people who get to perform here … it’s an honor to be on this stage.”
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Tennessee-Florida Atlantic is scheduled to begin at or near 9 p.m. New York electricians are the type to turn out the lights in Madison Square Garden at midnight.
This is a second-string NCAA game. It will be on TBS and the Vol Network.
The winner advances to Saturday’s Elite Eight against the winner of No. 3 seed Kansas State and No. 7 seed Michigan State.
Marvin West welcomes comments or questions from website readers. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com