Vanderbilt’s “Princeton-style” (slow tempo) presents the Volunteers with a new challenge for tomorrow night.

The Tennessean has a nice article on junior forward Dane Bradshaw, who is becoming the face of Tennessee Volunteer basketball.

After its 81-65 win Saturday night against South Carolina at Thompson-Boling Arena, the Tennessee Volunteer basketball team now has the same number of wins as last year’s basketball team had all season. Going into the season, no one was sure whether the team would make it to the NIT, much less the NCAA Tournament.

Basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who gets all of the credit for the great surprise this season, has yet to admit that the Vols are headed to the Big Dance, but that’s not stopping the fans. So much for wondering whether they’ll get invited, now it’s about where they’re re going to be seeded.

Anyway, about the game:

• The crowd at Thompson-Boling topped 20,000 for the third consecutive game, something that’s not happened since 1988. Tennessee apparently ranks 10th in the nation in home attendance with an average of 16,863 per game. They’re second to Kentucky in the SEC. The whole attendance thing is really resonating with recruits.
• Senior Andre Patterson got his third consecutive double-double (13 points and 12 rebounds).
• The Vols struggled — at halftime, the Vols had turned the ball over nine times and had hit just 6 of 23 3-point attempts — but won 81-65.
• Credit team chemistry for the victory despite the adversity. Credit Coach Pearl for the chemistry. See, e.g., the Andre Patterson/Stanley Asumnu swap. Last Wednesday, Pearl removed Asumnu from the starting lineup and inserted Patterson. Both Patterson and Asunmu have responded positively. Asumnu had 10 points, four rebounds, and zero turnovers against South Carolina after a mini-slump prior to losing his starting job.
• Tennessee out-rebounded South Carolina 43-30.
• The Vols are first in the SEC East. Over Florida. Over Kentucky. Over the rainbow.

GoVolsXtra.com’s Mark Burgess has an excellent article on former Tennessee Volunteer basketball coach Buzz Peterson. Particularly interesting are Peterson’s thoughts on the success of his former players under current coach Bruce Pearl:

I do watch them and I have a lot of interest in those young men. I want to see them do well. I really do.

It doesn’t bother me that (people say) hey, this guy is doing a much better job than Peterson did. It doesn’t bother me.

I want to see those kids do well, and I feel like they deserve a chance to get in the tournament and make something of themselves. I want to see them win.

Nicole, my 14-year-old, asked me, ‘How can you watch that? How can you do that?’ I can’t sit here and get mad at them. It’s not Bruce Pearl’s fault.

It was a great opportunity for Bruce Pearl. He had success in Milwaukee and he took advantage of the situation.

I told her, you know what, Nicole, if these guys were losing, it would pretty much be my fault I couldn’t recruit. Now they’re winning, and this guy’s a better coach than daddy. It’s pretty much a no-win situation.

Why be mad? Pull for them. Be happy for the guys and cheer them on.

Buzz Peterson is a wise, humble man living out his faith under difficult circumstances. Tennessee was fortunate to be associated with him.

College Football News has the Tennessee Volunteers ranked No. 9 in its Pre-preseason poll. Here’s how the Vols’ 2006 opponents stack up in the same poll:

• California — No. 12
• Air Force — No. 89
• Florida — No. 2
• Marshall — No. 88
• Memphis — No. 73
• Georgia — No. 21
• Alabama — No. 20
• South Carolina — No. 35
• LSU — No. 4
• Arkansas — No. 34
• Vanderbilt — No. 72
• Kentucky — No. 78

An interesting snippet from Scout.com regarding former Tennessee Volunteer defensive back Jason Allen:

Tennessee defensive back Jason Allen, who would’ve been playing in [the Senior Bowl] were it not for a major hip injury last season, is walking around the Senior Bowl hotel.  Speaking with scouts this evening, Allen is showing no ill-effects from his injury.

Good news.  Hoping for all the best for Jason.

Lots-o-news on the Tennessee Volunteer basketball team today. A few odds and ends:

• The Vols’ win over the No. 2-ranked Florida Gators on Saturday has propelled the team into the top 25. Tennessee is No. 19 in the AP poll and No. 20 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. Said coach Pearl:
  

  At this point of the season, there’s some substance to it. After the Texas game (Dec. 17), I don’t know we deserved to be top 25. But, really, the body of work to this point, with us competing well on the road in defeat as well as the quality victories we have, yeah, I think we’re deserving of the ranking.

• Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley complained to the SEC office about the Volunteer fans storming the court after the big win. (Pulling a John Pennington here), to quote Brad Paisley, “Waa, waa, waa, waa, waa.” (That’s still very hard to type, by the way.) UT was fined $5,000 for the on-the-court celebration. UT athletic director Mike Hamilton and coach Pearl both asked Volunteer fans to refrain from doing it again. Subsequent violations could cost UT up to $50,000.
• Coach Pearl has written a letter to UT donors and season ticket holders imploring them to buy as many tickets as possible for UT’s home game against the Kentucky Wildcats on March 1, 2006. It’s a campaign to “keep the blue out” of Thompson-Boling Arena.
• On that note, thanks to Akijikan, who pointed out that “The Summit” is the name for the court in Thompson-Boling, not the new name for the arena. No offense to Thompson or to Boling, but I think “The Summit” makes a great name for the UT arena and an odd name for a floor, but I have too few dollars to make my opinion count.
• Coach Pearl said this week that talk of an NCAA tournament berth is still a bit premature: “Just the math doesn’t allow it. You have to win half your conference games, and we’ve won three.”
• Sophomore guard Chris Lofton, who scored 29 points against the Gators and made the defensive play of the game, was named the SEC Player of the Week.

John Pennington, master of weaving pop culture into sports observations, posts another excellent piece, this one on how the Tennessee Volunteer basketball team is racking up the wins:

For the Vols to win [against the No. 2-ranked Florida Gators], the following had to happen:1. The young Gators would have get rattled early by an SRO crowd at Thompson-Boling.

2. Both Chris Lofton and CJ Watson would have to have great games.

3. Tennessee would have to get Major Wingate’s best game of the year to help offset Florida’s size advantage.

And we all know how it turned out… exactly NONE of those things happened.

But Bruce’s Believers still came through.

HOW?

That’s been the question all year. National media, local media, fans, everyone’s been asking the same thing: “How does this team keep winning?”

Last week I pointed to “Heart and Effort,” which I think should be the title of any DVDs the Vol Network intends to sell about these guys. But I think Lloyd Bridges might have said it better (and I paraphrase):

“I gotta say something about that (team out) there, and I can sum it all up in just one word: courage, dedication, daring, pride, pluck, spirit, grit, metal, and G-U-T-S, guts! Why, (these Vols have) got more guts in (their) little finger(s) than most of us have in our entire large intestine. Including the colon!”

Good stuff.

A day after the Tennessee Volunteers’ huge win over the Florida Gators, and Knoxville is still buzzing:

“It was like Knoxville was a different town today, you know?” Pearl said. “I can still feel the excitement.”No doubt, the carryover from the Vols’ 80-76 upset over No. 2 and previously unbeaten Florida has been impressive.

Turn on the radio to get a taste of what’s being discussed in every barber shop and office water cooler.

What’s just as remarkable as Knoxville’s transformation to a basketball town is the short time it’s taken Pearl to put the pieces in place to make it all happen.

Pearl said Friday it’s more than just his team’s fast start, which has the Vols 12-3 overall and 3-1 SEC, on the brink of cracking today’s Top 25 polls.

“The fans aren’t coming (Saturday) night because we’re winning,” Pearl said Friday. “They’re coming because of the effort our players our putting out.”

The players, in turn, put out the effort because they believe in Pearl. Already, Pearl’s fan-friendly ways have rubbed off on his players.

The actual game atmosphere was apparently something not seen since football season.  Well, since the beginning of football season.

Fans camped out (yes, this is Knoxville, but it’s still winter) to get tickets to the sold out game, and coach Bruce Pearl gave them pizzas and a pep talk while they waited.

At C.J. Watson’s suggestion, the players entered the arena through the crowd in sort of a mini Vol Walk.  Football coach Phillip Fulmer and his wife and Lady Vols coach Pat Summit were on hand to lend their support.

As for the game itself, the team reminded me of a yippy little dog nipping at the heels of an oversized opponent, more of a nuisance than anything else.  It looked like they were playing as well as they could, but that it would not be enough.

With only a few minutes remaining, though, they tied the game and then traded leads until the end, when they finally pulled ahead.  There were a couple of moments when it looked like poor shot selection was going to doom them, but Chris Lofton made the play of the game when he intercepted the ball on a Gators 2-on-1 break and heaved the ball the length of the floor to Dane Bradshaw, who converted a lay-up to seal the victory.

The fans rushed the court in celebration.  If there had been goal posts, they would have been torn down.

A great win for the basketball Vols.

GoVolsxtra.com is reporting that former Tennessee Volunteer offensive coordinator Randy Sanders will coach quarterbacks for the Kentucky Wildcats next year.

Sanders apparently accepted the job on Saturday after it had been offered to him Friday.

More from the Tennessean:

Tennessee Coach Philip Fulmer shrugged off the irony of having Sanders in the same division.

“It’s just the nature of the business, and he’ll do a good job for them,” Fulmer said. “We play them every year, so there’s not a lot of secrets anyway.”

Kurt Roper spent last season as the Wildcats’ quarterbacks coach, but was hired earlier this month to coach running backs at Tennessee. Roper was a graduate assistant at UT from 1996-98.

Sanders, who resigned last season after seven years as the Vols’ offensive coordinator, will step in for Roper at Kentucky. Sanders will not be the offensive coordinator at Kentucky. Joker Phillips enters his second season as the Wildcats’ play-caller.