KNOXVILLE – How accustomed to not only winning but winning big have Tennessee’s basketball fans become this winter?
At least 25 percent of the 19,282 folks who visited Thompson-Boling Arena on Tuesday night for the third-ranked Volunteers’ 106-87 rout of Arkansas had headed for the exits by the time Admiral Schofield buried the 3-pointer that gave the winners their 98th, 99th and 100th points of the night.
To put a different spin on this, the last time the Big Orange hit the big three digits in a Southeastern Conference game was in 2008 against Florida.
“I didn’t even know that shot gave us 100,” Schofield said after the game. “I did wonder what all the cheering was about. I just wanted to make sure I beat the shot clock.”
Yet if the fans may have understandably begun to expect such brilliance – after all, three of the Vols’ four SEC wins in four tries have come by 19 or more points, and all four have come by double figures – this was not a win that particularly pleased coach Rick Barnes.