Rarely will you see (maybe never) a basketball team with greater grit and more determination than Tennessee demonstrated Saturday at Food City Center. The second half was truly remarkable.

The Volunteers overwhelmed No. 5 Florida, 64-44. They finished 10 points short of what the Gators did to them in Gainesville but the message was decisive: You guys don’t have a chance.

Rick Barnes, 70 and a half, will eventually decide where this fits in his hall of fame career. He has 824 coaching victories. There can’t have been many more gratifying.

“I’m as proud of these guys as any team since I’ve been here because of the way they prepared and they knew they could go out and get a win.

“We needed a great performance today and we got it.”

The Vols were short-handed. Zakai Zeigler couldn’t play. He has a sprained knee. Igor Milicic wanted to play but couldn’t. He has the flu. The Vols had been stumbling, staggering and falling short. They had lost three of four and were down among the also-rans in Southeastern Conference standings. The faint-hearted thought the season was doomed – or maybe already over.

The defensive plan and comeback were awesome. The Gators are among the most powerful offensive teams in the country. They were averaging 85 points per game. This time, they couldn’t run their offense. Everywhere they looked, Vols were in the way. Florida shot 24.5 percent. It was four of 27 on three-point attempts. There were bewildered looks on the floor. On the sideline, Ziggy was screaming his approval.

Barnes sort of thought he saw it coming during and after Friday practice, when the team gathered in a circle.

“Jahmai Mashack looked at everyone and said, ‘Hey, we got enough right here. We got enough to get done what we need to get done if we’ll stick together, carry out the game plan, do what we’re talking about here.’”

Indeed, the Vols had enough. Mashack was a fiery dragon on defense who also chipped in eight points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals.

Jordan Gainey played, oh how he played – 37 minutes, 16 points, five assists, four rebounds, three steals and one turnover. One. He handled the heat. He tried to be what Ziggy couldn’t.

Chaz Lanier scored 19 – five threes, one sizzling drive to the rim and two free throws. Felix Okpara and Cade Phillips outworked the Florida bigs. Tennessee actually won the backboard battle by three. In Gainesville, the Gators had 19 more rebounds.

Neither team shot well in the first half but Tennessee led at intermission, 24-21. The Vols won the second half by 17. They finished with a giant inside advantage, 34-14 points in the paint. The Gators looked like they wanted to go home. The Vols looked like they could play a double-header.

“I thought Cade was really energized,” said Barnes. “Felix in the second half was terrific. Just really proud because a lot of them hadn’t been in a game like this at this level. We could talk for an hour about Jordan. His cardio toughness really showed up.”

Barnes may have smiled just a little when he mentioned his assistants.

“From a coaching staff standpoint, this was a special one because of the way we were beaten down there and then came back with two starters out and played the way we did.”

There was one pregame disagreement – about aggressiveness. Barnes said not to overdo it.

“I said not early, we can’t afford to get into foul trouble. Start of the game, everybody’s on edge, even referees. I don’t want anybody to get any early fouls.”

So, Okpara picked up two in the first three minutes.

“But that was it. We knew what we had to do,” said the coach.

Barnes went against his own philosophy. He allowed Felix to play with direction: Don’t get another one.

The coach revisited his summation of the defense.

“Shack (that’s Mashack) had a great day. Florida had the same group of guys that lit us up down there. We responded as a team. That’s what competitors do. You can’t always come out on the good side of it, but a competitor is going to fight back.

“Jahmai has won a lot of games in a lot of ways here. He impacts winning.”

Barnes says Mashack is a high-level competitor.

“That’s an incredible talent … It’s great when you have someone like that, especially when Zakai is not playing … I do think Jahmai took it on himself to even take it to a higher level.”

Next: Really big game, Missouri, 7 p.m. on Wednesday at Food City Center. The Tigers defeated Florida in Gainesville.

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