Tennessee guard Josh Richardson (1) celebrates a basket against Vanderbilt as Tennessee forward Derek Reese (23) look son during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the second round of the Southeastern Conference tournament, Thursday, March 12, 2015, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)NASHVILLE — Josh Richardson was not ready for his Tennessee basketball career to reach its conclusion.
The All-SEC senior guard felt he needed to relay that message to the rest of his team.
With the Volunteers facing a double-digit deficit against Vanderbilt early in the second half of Thursday night’s Southeastern Conference tournament game, Richardson wasted few words in trying to galvanize his teammates to pick it up.
“He climbed in us,” guard Kevin Punter would later recall. “But we needed it.”
Richardson’s message produced a delayed result, as Tennessee turned a 12-point deficit with seven minutes to go on its head with a 20-2 game-ending run in an improbable 67-61 win against the Commodores at Bridgestone Arena.
“It’s March Madness,” first-year Tennessee coach Donnie Tyndall chuckled to himself outside the locker room after the Vols beat Vanderbilt for the second time in three meetings this season.
“So many crazy things happen. Expect the unexpected, as they say.”
Tennessee (16-15) likely doesn’t win a game in which it trailed for 34-plus minutes if not for Richardson, who led the Vols both with his play and his words.
He scored a team-high 22 points and added six rebounds and three steals, but the box score won’t show how animated he got in the huddle during one timeout.
“It has to happen sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes you’ve got to climb into somebody if we’re not doing right. I think once I stepped on everybody’s necks a little bit, we turned around and started playing.”
Richardson scored 11 points in the first eight minutes of the second half to trim Tennessee’s 13-point deficit to two with 12 minutes left.
“Josh went crazy on us,” forward Derek Reese said. “He went off on us, that this was not going to be his last game. We weren’t playing hard. We needed to play even harder, be more aggressive and play ‘D.’
“He led by example, he led by communicating and he did a very good job.”
Vanderbilt (19-13), which erased a 13-point second-half deficit in a 73-65 win in Knoxville last month, answered the Richardson-fueled run with a 12-2 spurt to take a 59-47 lead and regain control of the game.
It looked unlikely at that point that Tennessee had one final run left, but this team never seems to quit.
“As a coach, I take a lot of pride in having our kids be tough and gritty everywhere we’ve ever been, and I think this team has slowly gotten that into our game,” Tyndall said. “We don’t play well every night. That’s obvious, but I do think we play with a lot of grit and toughness every night, and tonight embodied that.”
Richardson’s teammates came to his rescue – Armani Moore’s, too, after Tennessee’s second-leading scorer went scoreless amid foul trouble – down the stretch.
Punter and Reese hit 3s, but it was Robert Hubbs who took the baton from Richardson, as the talented but inconsistent sophomore scored six points in a 12-0 game-tying run.
His 3 with a little more than two minutes left gave Tennessee the lead for good.
“He was huge,” Richardson said. “I think it started in the first half when he hit that big 3 at the end. I think that got him going a little bit. I’m just glad he came with us. When Robert comes, it changes the whole complexion of the game.
“I just see his potential. I need him to see his potential. Once he realizes how good he can be and how hard he has to work, I think he’ll get it.”
Hubbs finished with a career-high-tying 16 points, and Devon Baulkman added 12 points off the bench in what was his first double-figure scoring game since the SEC opener at Mississippi State.
Damian Jones, Vanderbilt’s All-SEC sophomore forward, often had his way with the smaller Vols on the way to 20 points and 15 rebounds.
The Commodores were the SEC’s best shooting and 3-point shooting team entering the tournament, but they finished 6-of-26 on 3-pointers and made just one of their final 10 shots, a far cry from making their last 13 shots in the last meeting.
“They’re so good offensively,” Tyndall said, “and it seems like every single time down the floor, you’re hoping they miss, because you’re not making them miss.”
As the seconds ran down, Richardson dribbled the ball across halfcourt before happily tossing the ball into the air at the sound of the buzzer.
His career would see another day and another game, a matchup with second-seeded Arkansas tonight at 7.
“He really challenged our guys in two or three different timeouts to pick it up,” Tyndall said. “He wasn’t afraid to challenge guys. He told them point-blank in one huddle, ‘This is not going to be my last game.’
“A lot of guys can talk it, but Josh walks it as well, so it was pretty impressive.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com