Vols should embrace bully role
So, it’s not everyday that any college basketball team makes Duke the sympathetic, Daniel LaRusso-level victim.
(Side note: Yes, Johnny Lawrence and the Cobra Kai went too far, but LaRusso was not innocent in the confrontations that culminated in the most anticipated All-Valley Karate Finals ever, you know?) Still, Duke has always been more bully than bullied. A March fixture that perceives to get every break, get more than its fair share of whistles and get pass after pass, even when Coach K issued his very haphazard and convenient “Respect the game” speeches. (Side note: Surprising how almost all of Coach K’s bully-pulpit moments were after a somewhat surprising Duke loss through the years, you know?)
Anyway, so Duke, its fans and its army of former players who either went to the NBA or to ESPN, are all a tizzy because Tennessee pushed them around in a decidedly physical and equally as decisive Vols win in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Whatever.
It also caused Florida Atlantic’s coach to get his jokes in after his FAU bunch bounced Cinderella Fairleigh Dickinson on Sunday. When asked how his team will prepare for Tennessee, Dusty May made the most of his first step into the spotlight.
“We’re going to study Australian rugby rules and get ready for the Vols,” May told the press after Sunday’s win.
Whether he was was trying to get a spot in next year’s rotation of ESPN guest commentators or not, May’s spin is savvy.
Forget all the Duke crocodile tears and faux outrage for a second. Because, yes, it’s laughable that we are in a place in sports that a team using its clear edge — Tennessee was stronger, older and deeper than the Duke teenagers on the floor Saturday — is a bad thing.
Is Jay Bilas going to campaign for rule changes because Duke got pushed around and ultimately pushed out of the NCAA tournament? Maybe.
But May’s preemptive
strike is a smart play and continues to direct the narrative about UT’s ‘thuggish’ and physical antics on both ends of the floor.
That now becomes a storyline not just in what happened but what will happen this weekend in the Sweet 16.
And goodness anyone who knows the Pac-12 from Pac-Man knows college basketball referees love to make any meaningful moment about the guys in stripes blowing whistles.
So FAU has the early lead, and here’s betting Rick Barnes will not be outdone. He’ll downplay his team’s style of course and may even be self-deprecating in some ways with something along the lines of “When you struggle scoring as much as we do at times, you have to win anyway you can.”
But here’s hoping he and the Vols embrace the physicality of their play and their clear edge in strength and size.
Have Josh Heupel run some Oklahoma drills in the first Sweet 16 practice that the media gets to see. Have the basketball team come out for a lay-up line in helmets.
Because if May and the media are trying to get into the refs’ heads about Tennessee’s style, here’s hoping Barnes and Co. make sure Tennessee’s style is in FAU’s line of sight too.
Either way, Saturday’s win may be one of the biggest ever for a UT program that has seen a surreal number of ups and downs this season.
Did they leave one of the sport’s true bluebloods black and blue and bloodied? Yep. They sure did.
But 40 years ago, a guy coaching a collection of players no one thought could win coined the March adage, “Survive and advance.”
Now the Vols are adding their own Ivan Drago slant to the saying, focusing more on the advancing and not really caring who survives.