In Tennessee's second-round NCAA tournament matchup last season against Michigan, the Volunteers led 60-54 at the under-8 media timeout only to get outscored 22-8 down the stretch in a 76-68 loss.
There would be no déjà vu Saturday.
Leading Duke 51-44 at the under-8 break, the Vols closed out the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament champion with a 14-8 run for a 65-52 triumph and a berth in Thursday evening's East Region semifinals in New York City. Did Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, even for a millisecond, venture back to last season's collapse?
"I didn't at all, because this is a different team," Barnes said in a news conference. "Right from the beginning, our guys were really locked in."
Or, as senior guard Santiago Vescovi more colorfully stated: "That feeling was awful. We didn't want to relive that again."
The fourth-seeded Vols (25-10) will next play ninth-seeded Florida Atlantic (33-3), which advanced to Madison Square Garden with Sunday night’s 78-70 victory over 16th-seeded and tournament darling Fairleigh Dickinson.
Duke represented the biggest blue blood Tennessee has ever conquered in an NCAA tournament, with the Vols having never defeated Indiana, Louisville or North Carolina in the March extravaganza and having never faced Kansas, Kentucky or UCLA. The Vols improved to 25-25 all-time in NCAA tourney play with Saturday's smothering, which includes a 6-4 mark under Barnes.
Barnes is among the sport's most consistent coaches, having taken Clemson, Texas and Tennessee to 24 of the last 27 staged NCAA tournaments, with the 2020 event having been canceled due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. Two of the years Barnes missed were his first two at Tennessee, where he arrived in 2015 as the program's third coach in three seasons.
His consistency has been countered by postseason potholes, however, as this is just his eighth Sweet 16 journey in his 24 trips.
"Wins in March are the wins that people always want to bring up," Vols senior forward Olivier Nkamhoua told reporters in the locker room Saturday after a 27-point performance. "Everybody knows Coach Barnes is a great coach. He's an all-time coach who is probably going to be a Hall of Fame coach. Whatever disrespect people have for him really doesn't make sense.
"He's been proving himself his whole career. This shouldn't be something that will make or break his career, but it shows that he coaches guys to be better."
Last season's Vols seemed like a Sweet 16 lock after racing through the Southeastern Conference tournament and facing Michigan with 13 wins in their previous 14 games. This season's Vols were slight underdogs against Duke, winning just six of their previous 13 games before Saturday and having lost sophomore point guard Zakai Zeigler to a season-ending ACL injury.
"Regardless of what people on the outside might have thought, I know these guys have an extreme amount of pride and belief in each other," Barnes said. "They've worked hard to get themselves here, and we obviously beat an outstanding team in Duke."
Barnes has a polish and a demeanor reflective of someone delivering a Sunday sermon, but his team Saturday occasionally looked like the schoolyard bully in pounding a younger Duke team. The Vols outrebounded Duke 35-30 and forced the Blue Devils into 15 turnovers as the five-time national champions matched their lowest point total in an NCAA tournament game.
Nkamhuoa was the obvious star of the show, connecting on 10 of 13 shots that included three 3-pointers, but the most symbolic moment was when Duke 7-foot freshman center Kyle Filipowski was on the wrong end of a Jonas Aidoo elbow as Aidoo was coming down with a first-half rebound.
Filipowski suffered a gash under his eye that required treatment.
"That's what we do," Nkamhoua said after a performance more reminiscent of Josh Heupel's Vols on an autumn afternoon. "We're a tough, hard-nosed team, and that's how we play everybody."
Sure, there are examples throughout this season in which that hasn't always been the case. The Vols looked lifeless in double-digit losses to Colorado and Florida, and they were outrebounded by 20 against Kentucky inside Thompson-Boling Arena.
Yet the here and now has Tennessee in the Sweet 16 with five prominent seniors — Nkamhoua, Vescovi, Josiah-Jordan James, Tyreke Key and Uros Plavsic — and if resembling the football Vols is the way to push forward, then everyone seems up for that assignment.
"Before this game, I was like, 'I'm not going to let those freshmen end my basketball career,'" Plavsic said.
Tennessee Athletics photo / Tennessee sophomore forward Jonas Aidoo has a happy FaceTime session with injured point guard Zakai Zeigler after Saturday’s 65-52 downing of Duke. Zeigler remained in Knoxville after undergoing ACL surgery last Monday.Bandwagon full
James said there was a bulletin board filled with Duke praise before Saturday's showdown, and he had a message for those who have doubted the Vols during their late-season struggles.
"Don't try to switch up now," James told reporters. "Don't try to come in and rejoice with us. We've got everything we need right now. We've got the people we need, so you guys can stay on that side.
"Everybody has a right to their opinion. They just happen to be wrong."
Big Apple awaits
Tennessee will be rejoined in New York City by Zeigler, who underwent knee surgery last Monday and did not accompany the team to Orlando, Florida, for the first two rounds of the tournament. Zeigler is from Long Island but relocated to Knoxville last spring after his family home burned.
"It means the world," Nkamhuoa said. "We love Z. He's been the heart of the team since he got here, and he's an important part of our team whether he's on the court or not. We wanted to keep playing so he would be able to experience this with us."
Said sophomore guard Jahmai Mashack: "To have him going with us — we're going to be even more motivated."
Odds and ends
The Vols are now 6-0 in their "Tennessee Classic" uniforms, having defeated Texas, Alabama and Arkansas in the regular season, Ole Miss in the SEC tournament, and Louisiana and Duke in the NCAA tourney. ... Key on Plavsic's two quick and obvious fouls: "I think that set the tone for how physical this game was going to be." ... Plavsic on the win: "This was on my bucket list -- the last blue blood school of my career. I'm really happy that it wound up this way."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.