Tennessee forward Willie Carmichael III (24) catches his breath in his game on Nov. 3, 2014, in Knoxville.KNOXVILLE – As Willie Carmichael sprang into the air, the odds were he was going to end up on “SportsCenter’s” top plays of Thursday night one way or the other.
As Nick Shepherd, Texas Southern’s 6-foot-9 forward, cocked the basketball behind his head and prepared to throw down a vicious one-handed dunk, Tennessee’s 6-8 freshman rose to meet him and blocked the shot against the backboard.
Carmichael recalled after Tennessee’s 70-58 win Thursday night that he never feared he’d end up on the wrong end of a poster dunk.
“Either I was going to block it,” he said, “or it was going to be a foul.”
The block landed at No. 6 on the popular ESPN list of top-10 plays, and later in the first half he flew in over a crowd to slam home Armani Moore’s miss.