KNOXVILLE -- Josh Richardson was asked to play a little word association during his meeting with the media before Tennessee's basketball practice Friday afternoon.
The Volunteers' guard was asked what first came to his mind at the mention of Antwan Space, the Texas A&M forward who twice beat Tennessee with last-second 3-pointers last season.
"Swish," Richardson replied with a laugh.
"He hurt us twice last year," he added, "and if Antwan Space is in the game at the end this year, I'm definitely going to tell whoever's near him not to give him any space."
The 6-foot-8 Florida State transfer made only 13 triples in 34 games last season, but two of them nearly knocked the Vols out of the NCAA tournament. His 3 with 4.4 seconds left gave the Aggies a 57-56 win in Knoxville last January. In the rematch in College Station, he did it again with 2.4 seconds left in A&M's 68-65 overtime win.
"I don't even know how to explain it," Tennessee forward Derek Reese said.
"It was tough, those two games we lost last year. It's still fresh in our minds, the players that were here last year. Really we're just focused on it as another game. We just want to go out there and play them like they're a different team and go out there and play the best we can."
The casts have changed since those games. Tennessee returned just three players who faced the Aggies, and Texas A&M's two leading scorers are transfers from SMU (Jalen Jones) and Houston (Danuel House).
"I wouldn't say we'll treat it any different than any other game," Richardson said. "We'll treat it like we're playing another team in the SEC. For us returning guys, it has a little bit more meaning, especially the way we lost last year, but we're just going to have to come out and play well."
Donnie Tyndall, Tennessee's first-year coach, was not a part of the two Space games last season, but he'll see a familiar face roaming the other bench in Billy Kennedy.
Tennessee head coach Donnie Tyndall shouts from the sideline during Tennessee's 56-38 loss to Alabama in Knoxville on Jan. 10, 2015. The two coaches faced off 11 times as Ohio Valley Conference rivals while Kennedy was at Murray State and Tyndall at Morehead State. In the five seasons they were in the OVC together, Murray State won three regular-season crowns, and both the Racers and Eagles went to two NCAA tournaments and pulled first-round upsets in 2010 and 2011.
Kennedy owns an 8-3 head-to-head record against Tyndall heading into their first meeting as SEC coaches.
"I hold him in high esteem," Tyndall said. "He's a great coach. At Murray State (and Morehead), we took over our programs at the same time and basically, for his four or five years there, we alternated winning the league. He's a great coach. His teams are always really, really good defensively. We had some great games with them.
"I'd like to think that we're pretty cognizant of what he's going to do against our zone, and he's probably pretty familiar with how we play our zone, so we'll both have a little bit of an advantage each way there. He's a great coach, does an outstanding job and he's building that Texas A&M program in a big way."
Both the Vols and Aggies, who played a four-overtime game in College Station in Texas A&M's first season in the SEC in 2012-13, enter today's game on three-game win streaks.
Tennessee is in second place in the SEC after five league games after being picked to finish 13th.
"The way I'm built, like we've talked about, and I don't mean this arrogantly in any way, but we expect to win every game we play," Tyndall said. "We know that that's probably not going to be the case, but if you don't have that mentality and that attitude, it's not going to happen.
"What I'm excited about is the people of our community are so excited about what our team is doing and how hard we're playing. It helps with recruiting as we move forward. It's just been a lot of positivity surrounding our team right now."
While the Vols are viewed as the league's biggest early surprise, they don't share that perception.
"I can't really speak for the rest of my teammates, but from preseason to now, how much faith I've had in my teammates, I'm not really surprised at all," Richardson said. "I just call it doing what we're supposed to do."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com