Cardinals just too good for the Vols

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With 8:18 to play Thursday night, Chris Lofton finally hit a 3-pointer against Louisville. Tennessee’s most decorated player had been trying the entire game to swish his signature shot. Seven times previously, he’d missed. One had even been blocked.

But finally he netted one, a triple to slash a 10-point Cardinals cushion to seven.

If the Volunteers expected to extend their season and finally reach an NCAA tournament regional final for the first time in school history, this would be a pretty good time to start.

Perhaps the last time.

Especially when Louisville guard Edgar Sosa fouled out a few seconds later.

But much as they had too often this night, the Vols turned the ball over almost immediately after Sosa left the game for good. Terrence Williams scored a basket on the other end. UT trailed by 11. Then by 12 a minute after that. And by 15 some 90 seconds after that.

Soon enough, another Lofton 3-pointer had been blocked. Then another.

For one of the few times this season, Bruce Pearl’s tenacious team wasn’t getting the calls, the bounces, the breaks. Finally, the Vols got no more play in the 2008 NCAA tournament. They again fell short of the Elite Eight, just like every previous UT team before them.

And if that’s the way some people choose to remember this 31-5 team at the close of this 79-60 defeat, so be it. Pearl’s goal all season had been to take this team where no Big Orange bunch had gone before.

That the team once ranked No. 1 ultimately ended in the same round it did a year ago is an indisputable fact.

But so is this, from Pearl: “Tonight’s game shouldn’t take much away from the finest season in UT basketball. We fought hard; we just couldn’t get much going.”

It works that way sometimes. Nothing works. And maybe this team worked too hard for too long, worn down by a schedule that included too many nonconference games against too many good teams. UT won almost all of them but looked tired by March.

And the Vols played tired against Louisville, crushed on the boards (43-28) and weak on their shots, hitting just five of 20 3-pointers while committing 17 turnovers and getting seven shots blocked.

“I’ve been coaching a long time,” Pearl said, “and I’ve never had the tempo of a game been dictated so much by an opponent.”

In fact, Pearl was either so frustrated or so desperate in the opening half that he sent in his son Steven on three occasions. And the kid didn’t do half bad. He even got a key offensive rebound inside the final minute of the first period that eventually led to two Lofton free throws that briefly cut the Cards’ early 16-point lead to five.

Now it looked like a game. UT was making Louisville play even faster than it normally wishes, which is usually like asking Jeff Gordon to floor it.

And the Vols picked right up in the second half where they’d left off in the first — whittling down the Louisville lead. While holding the Cards without a basketball for the first three minutes of the period, the Big Orange hit two layups to cut the cushion to three points.

Then Tennessee’s 10th steal of the game cut it to one. Just as important, Cards guard Jerry Smith, who had scored nine first-half points, went to the bench with his third foul.

Within Bobcats Arena it seemed the overwhelming number of North Carolina fans were warming to the Vols, perhaps deciding they’d rather face UT than Louisville in Saturday’s East final.

Or maybe they just appreciated the Vols’ heart and hustle. But in the end it wasn’t enough to hold off the Cards, who just kept rebounding and blocking shots and generally controlling the game.

What this means for UT’s future is nothing. The Vols will certainly be different without the deep shooting of Lofton and JaJuan Smith and the steadying personality of fellow senior guard Jordan Howell.

But they just might also be better. If J.P. Prince ever settles in at point guard, the Vols could conceivably field a team with no starter shorter than 6-foot-6. Imagine Pearl’s press with all that wingspan to pass around, all that height to pass over.

As good as Tennessee has been in Pearl’s first three seasons, it could become even better next season, capable of suffocating anyone smaller and frustrating the rare team that might be taller.

Maybe none of that will immediately erase the frustrating end to this season. But it should make the offseason move along more quickly following the finest UT men’s basketball season ever.