KNOXVILLE — The University of Tennessee men’s basketball team missed 12 free throws in its own gym.

Alabama’s Anthony Brock had no trouble with one 30-plus-footer.

Brock’s contested, buzzer-beating bank capped a stunning Sunday afternoon in Thompson-Boling Arena, giving archrival Alabama a 70-67 upset victory over the Volunteers.

At 5-foot-9, the smallest man on either team had to overcome tougher obstacles than Tennessee’s defense to position himself for a Herculean heave.

Brock missed the Crimson Tide’s Saturday practice to attend his grandmother’s funeral in Little Rock, and he missed a flight to Knoxville on Saturday night. His cousin drove him 530 miles through the night — which included losing an hour to Daylight Saving Time — and he arrived in town at 8:30 a.m.

“It has been a tough 10 days for him,” Alabama interim coach Philip Pearson said. “To make a shot like that at the end of the game is just great.”

UT’s Tyler Smith missed two shots at the rim and couldn’t corral a third rebound, giving the ball back to Bama a full 94 feet from the basket with 4.2 seconds left. Pearson said he put Brock in the game in hopes that he or senior guard Alonzo Gee could catch the ball on the run and get a clean look.

“I knew if I could get a look at the basket, I (could) get it up there,” Brock said. “I got a good look, I saw where it was and just shot it.”

And made it.

“It sort of looked on line,” Pearson said. “I am just happy it went in the basket. It seems like we have been in a lot of these.”

The Vols have, too, and they’re compiling a long list of home heartbreaks. Gonzaga, Memphis, LSU and now Alabama have out-fought UT in tight, Thompson-Boling tilts this season.

“We’ve lost a few,” Smith said. “But still, you’ve got to have confidence no matter what happened in the past, because it’s a new game and a new day. Our confidence is still there; we just didn’t make the plays.

“We missed quite a few free throws, and I didn’t get shots go in the basket today. If I could have made a few of those, maybe the game would have been a different story.”

The Vols (19-11, 10-6 Southeastern Conference), who improbably clinched the SEC Eastern Division championship last week with wins at Florida and South Carolina, were again victims of their recent success. They were sluggishly struggling through the majority of a game that could have continued their climb up the NCAA tournament seeding scenarios.

Meanwhile, Alabama (17-13, 7-9) is rolling into next week’s SEC tournament with four wins in the past five games.

“You’d think, with this being the last regular-season game, you’d be in a situation where you could say, ‘Nothing really would surprise me about this basketball team,’” UT coach Bruce Pearl said. “We’re extremely disappointed.

“We put a lot of emphasis on this game today to seeding, and this will obviously hurt our seed and our chance to advance in the NCAA tournament.”

The Vols stayed on the snooze button early, falling behind by double digits in the first 15 minutes.

A Brock 3-pointer and Gee jumper gave the Tide a 29-18 lead, and several defensive lapses kept UT down by a similar margin (39-29) at the break.

Bama went 4-for-9 from the 3-point line and 9-for-11 at the free-throw line in the first 20 minutes, while the Vols shot 12-for-31 from the field and 1-for-11 from long range.

“We just missed some shots, and they were making shots, but we battled back in the game,” UT junior forward Wayne Chism said. “We started out slow, the crowd started out slow; we picked it up, they picked it up.

“That’s the way it happens sometimes.”

Alabama’s advantage swelled to 43-31 early in the second half before UT went on one of its typical spurts. Two free throws from freshman guard Scotty Hopson, two Chism 3s and a Hopson trey comprised a 11-0 run that surged UT within one point. Sophomore guard Senario Hillman steadied the Tide with a 3, but the Vols took their first lead a few possessions later on a Chism 3 with 10:12 left.

The teams went back-and-forth from there. Alabama took a 65-62 lead, but a Bobby Maze 3 and Hopson transition slam nudged the Vols back in front. Gee quickly re-tied it with a tough jumper before Smith misfired twice on UT’s final possession.

“I think the strategy was the right strategy,” Pearl said. “We got down to Tyler at the rim, And if Tyler rebounds that ball, it’s our ball, and the shot clock was off. We had spacing, and we got what we wanted. Tyler got it to the rim ... and I think Tyler Smith at the rim is a pretty good look.”

Easier misses hurt the Vols, too. A 10-for-22 effort from the free-throw line — including three missed front-ends of one-and-ones — didn’t help the cause.

“It’s not always about effort,” Pearl said. “Sometimes it’s about a focus, and I think when you miss 10 free throws in the second half, it’s a lost focus and a lost sense of urgency.”

The Vols would do well to rediscover that focus Friday night, when they’ll open SEC tournament play with a quarterfinal against the winner of Thursday’s Alabama-Vanderbilt game.

“We can’t think about who’s winning that game,” Chism said. “We’ve just go to go to practice and go to work and try to win this thing. Whoever is hungry enough to win the SEC tournament is going to win it, and we’re fixing to go into that tournament hungry.”