Tennessee Vols '07-'08

Well, I was very sad that we lost, but I have to say the season was a success, and probably the best team Tennessee has ever had. We tied our highest seed ever with a #2. We advanced to the Sweet 16 (the farthest we have gone, but multiple times). And we were ranked #1 for the first time ever, and finished 31-5 with our most wins ever.

Chris Lofton was named 3rd team All-American, after being 2nd team his junior year. I was mostly sad that I will never get to see Lofton play again. He was my favorite college player ever. Chris was first team all-SEC 3 times, and SEC POY his junior year. He averaged 16.6 ppg in his four year career. Lofton was ranked by rivals.com as the #2 3-pt shooter of all time. His best individual season was '06-'07 where he averaged 20.8 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 1.7 apg, 1.5 spg and shot .479 from the field on 14 fg attempts/game. After leading the SEC in scoring his junior year, you would expect Lofton to shoot more his senior year. He reduced his shots/game by 2 attempts his final season. The team was more balanced with the additions of Prince and T. Smith, not to mention the maturation of a few players that played significant minutes as freshman the prior year. Lofton, who was considered front-runner for POY by many this past pre-season, unselfishly changed his game to make Tennessee a better team. It's not that he couldn't score (he averaged 22 ppg in the 10 games where he took 14 shots) his senior year, he just didn't have to.



I was also very concerned that Pearl would leave. Indiana was very interested in him, and he at one time had said that to be the Hoosiers coach was his dream job.

Yesterday morning, on the Dan Patrick Show, Bruce Pearl admitted that friends involved in administration at IU had asked him what he thought about possibly taking the job there. He informed them that it was "no longer his dream job".

Today Pearl made this statement: "I have said many times that I am a coach that digs his roots deep within a community. That is especially the case here at the University of Tennessee. In the last three years we have averaged more than 25 wins while winning SEC championships and making back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances. The fan support has been amazing with 20,000 fans at Thompson-Boling Arena creating the best homecourt advantage in the nation. While there have been rumors about me being considered for coaching jobs at other schools, I want the Tennessee fans to know that the only school I am interested in talking about is the University of Tennessee. We have started something special here and I look forward to being a part of it for a very long time. It is great to be a Volunteer.”

It certainly is great to be a Tennessee Vol. Thank you coach. We look forward to having a winning tradition in Men's hoops for a long time.