KNOXVILLE -- Prior to Saturday afternoon inside Thompson-Boling Arena, you could have made an argument for first-year Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall deserving Southeastern Conference honors as coach of the year.
And should Tyndall's Volunteers become the first team all season to defeat No. 1 Kentucky in that same building Tuesday night, he might yet deserve the award.
But LSU's 73-55 victory Saturday against a UT squad that entered this one with a 14-9 overall record and a 6-5 league mark -- same as the Tigers' SEC record before the game -- may also be a stark reminder of why the Big Orange was picked to finish 13th in a 14-team league during the preseason.
It may also scream that the cracks may be widening and the opportunities narrowing for Tennessee to reach the postseason. Especially with Big Blue on the immediate horizon and road trips to Ole Miss, Florida and LSU still to come.
"We played nervous, we played scared," Tyndall said afterward. "That falls on my shoulders. I obviously did a bad job preparing my team. It was embarrassing. It was absolutely humiliating."
If the Vols were nervous and scared, they may have had a good reason. Or four good reasons, which was the number of blocked UT shots that Tigers foward Jordan Mickey -- who leads the SEC in blocks -- had before the game was seven minutes old.
Understandably intimidated, the Vols hit just 30 percent from the field in an opening half that saw LSU lead 47-20 at intermission.
To make it worse, no less than the experts in Las Vegas had actually made the Vols as much as 2.5-point favorites.
Even LSU coach Johnny Jones sounded as if he wouldn't have been shocked by an opposite outcome.
"Coming into this game, I thought a big question was how we would respond and bounce back from an emotional and close basketball game the other night," the LSU coach said in reference to his team's two-point home loss to Kentucky on Tuesday night. "But I thought our guys did a tremendous job and may have played the best first half of basketball that we've played all year."
And Tennessee, coming off its exhilarating overtime win at Vanderbilt, somehow played its worst half of the season, bombed into submission by a Tigers team that knocked down seven of its 10 first-half 3-point shots.
Throw in the fact that the Vols have lost five of their last seven in conference play after winning four of their first five, and it's easy to see why Tyndall said of the Kentucky game, "If we play like we did the first half, they'll beat us by a hundred."
But odds are they won't. It's UK, after all, which has so often brought out the best in the Tennessee program, such as when the Vols vaporized the defending national champs by 30 two years ago inside the Boling Alley. That UT squad was coached by Cuonzo Martin, but as LSU's Jones said of Tyndall's diabolical defensive schemes: "They are great defensively in matchup zone. It's tough to prepare for because you don't play against it that often."
That's LSU. That's UK. That's anybody.
There's also Kentucky's level of play since conference play began. Only once have the Wildcats followed up a 30-point-plus home victory -- such as Saturday's 77-43 rout of South Carolina -- with a similarly cushy road win.
That came on Jan. 17, when a 86-37 mashing of Missouri was preceded by a 70-48 win at Alabama. But three of UK's last eight triumphs have come by single digits, including their last two road wins at Florida and LSU. Maybe UK is beatable and maybe it isn't, but the last time the Cats arrived in Knoxville with an undefeated record that included more than 20 straight wins, they left with a loss at the close of the 1966 regular season, falling 69-62.
Even the Vols' second half Saturday suggests they're capable of shocking Big Blue, given they outscored LSU 14-1 to open the second half. That's not to say this UT team should be expected to do what that one did 49 years ago. Especially not after Saturday, when an LSU team featuring similar length and strength to UK pretty much tormented UT from opening tap to final horn.
Or as Tyndall noted of the Cats: "Instead of two (tall) guys like (LSU's) Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey, they have five (tall) guys."
But if the postgame remarks were any indication, the Vols at least understand they need to swiftly put Saturday in the rearview mirror.
"As far as I'm concerned," said junior wing Amari Moore, "this game is far, far behind us."
If he's right, Tuesday could prove interesting. If he's wrong, UT could find itself even further behind UK than it ever trailed LSU.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.