A thing of beauty.

No, not coach Bruce Pearl’s game-long impersonation of a soaker hose. Definitely not that.

And no, not Noah’s multiple blood-seeping facial lacerations. Well, maybe that.

And no, not the over-contrasted Jefferson-Pilot telecast of the game, rendering all things orange the color, saturation, and hue of a solar flare instead. Somebody please tell me it’s not my t.v.

No, the thing of beauty was Dane Bradshaw’s game-sealing play of the game.

With the game tied at 72 with 18.8 seconds remaining and the Gators’ Corey Brewer inbounding the ball at half court, the Gators just need to hold the ball for the last shot. If it goes in, they win. If not, they go to overtime.

When the whistle blows, Brewer’s fake pass to his left is tracked inch-for-inch by the long arms and big body of Tennessee’s Major Wingate. Brewer shakes Wingate to the right before attempting a bounce pass back to the left, but Bradshaw explodes out of Wingate’s shadow to get a hand on the ball at the top of the key.

Several things then happen all at once.

Four players — Bradshaw, still looking for a handle on the ball, two Gators, and Vol guard C.J. Watson all converge on the ball. One Gator sprawls to the floor after bumping into Watson. Meanwhile, Bradshaw gets traction on the ball and does a sweet, sweet, sweet 360 spin move away from the remaining defender, covers the distance to the basket in a single step, and finger-rolls the ball into the goal.

Brewer stands slack-jawed at the top of the key, and coach Pearl wets the sole remaining dry spot on his two-thousand dollar suit.

On the other end, Brewer misses a three-point attempt, and the Gators foul Chris Lofton, who clinches it with two free throws. Vols win 76-72, sweep the hated Florida Gators, hit the 20-win mark, and clinch the SEC East Championship. They are well on their way to a No. 2 seed in the Big Dance.

All after beginning the season unranked.

Somebody say sweet!

ESPN2 is profiling the Tennessee men’s basketball team and head coach Bruce Pearl on its reality show The Season at 7:30 p.m. tonight. The show was shot in Knoxville last week.

Apparently, the ESPN crew followed Pearl to the cafeteria, where he often eats and mingles with students in his ongoing effort to sell UT basketball, and players C.J. Watson and Andre Patterson to class.

Get an inside-the-huddle look at coach Pearl keeping the team loose by instructing Patterson and Dane Bradshaw to play rock, paper, scissors to determine who would start the second half against Georgia.

Hey, make it an evening — Jefferson Pilot is showing the Vols-Gators game at 8:00 p.m. Tune in to see how Major Wingate responds to Pearl’s public criticism of his desire.

Oh, and now seems like a good time to refer to Pat Dooley’s column on Gatorsports.com on why everybody hates the Gators (Hat tip to EDSBS). I would add a few to the list, not the least of which involves the showering of visiting fans with cups of urine and post-game murders.

Note: the Getting to Know Tennessee’s Class of 2006 series will resume tomorrow. Maybe Friday.

The Tennessee Volunteer basketball team continued its winning ways last night with a huge win over its nemesis to the north, the Kentucky Wildcats.

Former Kentucky Mr. Basketball Chris Lofton was again the catalyst, scoring a career-high 31 points in the Vols’ 75-67 victory. UT ended an eight-game losing streak to Kentucky and strengthened its leading position in the SEC East.

Said Chris Lofton, “I got in my rhythm and my teammates kept feeding me the ball. I just tried to block everything out tonight.”

The Vols led most of the way, but Kentucky closed the gap as the clock wound down. Then, with 2:26 left in the game and the Vols behind 64-65, Major Wingate put Tennessee back on top with a bucket underneath to make the score 66-65.

Lofton scored the next seven points and was still calling for the ball when the clock ran out. “I was going to do something I probably shouldn’t have done,” he said. “I’m glad they didn’t throw me the ball.’’

I noticed something from the television coverage that was very telling. When the Vols scored the basket that effectively guaranteed the win, they danced over to the timeout huddle only to be greeted by coach Bruce Pearl yelling at them to calm down, to control their elation. Not one single player on this team has ever beaten Kentucky, much less at Rupp Arena. Pearl looked like he was instructing them, however, to act like they weren’t surprised they won.

Pearl coaches 24-7. During the game, he coaches from tip-off to final buzzer. His style of play uses all 94 feet of the court, and he makes the most of the talent on his team.

Pearl wins because he uses everything at his disposal.

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.

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.

Tennessee officials expect a capacity crowd of 24,535 or more Saturday night when the Vols host the Florida Gators.  Tipoff is at 7 p.m., and Fox Sport Net will televise the game.

Should the Summit hit 24,535, it will be the biggest crowd since 1991 when 25,125 showed up to see the Vols play the Kentucky Wildcats.  The attendance record of 25,610 was set in 1989, also against the Wildcats.

The Tennessee Volunteer basketball team, led by Memphis native Dane Bradshaw, gave the Memphis Tigers all they could handle but couldn’t quite escape with a win. Bradshaw led the uprising:

[He] was the catalyst, scoring a career-high 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting while pulling down a team-high 10 rebounds. He also had a team-high four assists and a game-high five steals.

“To have a double-double and fill up the stat sheet,” UT coach Bruce Pearl said. “What more can you say about Dane?”

Memphis fans chanted “Mem-phis Re-ject” at Bradshaw during the warm-ups. But the undersized junior forward quickly proved he was anything but that.

Bradshaw, a Memphis White Station high school star, scored six points and had five rebounds in the first 6A 1/2 minutes.

“I got comfortable early and realized where I could break the defense down,” said the 6-foot-4 Bradshaw, who scored most of his points in the lane. “I was hoping more than ever to play well in this type of game.”

If you didn’t see the game, you missed a tough, scrappy performance by Bradshaw, who at one point took a vicious elbow to the eye courtesy of one of the larger Tiger players.

Bradshaw staggered, but remained on his feet and celebrated the foul.

Come to think of it, the entire team took the Tigers’ best shot, remained on its feet, and served notice that the next 9 years of this heated rivalry is only beginning.