Not all double-overtime college basketball games are instant classics.
Tennessee at Texas A&M proved that Tuesday night.
The No. 24 Volunteers got a much-needed triumph inside the Food City Center, outlasting the resilient Aggies of first-year coach Bucky McMillan 87-82. The three-hour marathon was filled with stoppages in play, with the two teams combining for 53 fouls, 74 free-throw attempts and 32 turnovers.
Each team also missed 42 shots from the floor.
“I thought that we showed a lot of grit,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said afterward on the Vol Network. “We found a way to stay with it and made a lot of in-game adjustments. Bucky’s teams are hard to play against. They play that kind of havoc.”