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#76
#76
Tennessee did finish first in the SEC East Division (there were East and West divisions at the time), in both 1999 and 2000. They finished in a four way tie for the best overall record in the SEC regular season in 2000. Those were good teams. Tennessee beat Florida twice in 2000. Florida made the Final Four that year.

Was Tennessee anywhere close to a natty contender those years. No. And that was their ceiling. Winning the east lol. You made my point.
 
#77
#77
Was Tennessee anywhere close to a natty contender those years. No. And that was their ceiling. Winning the east lol. You made my point.
No, you said that "Jerry Green was never a sec/natty title contender." Tennessee did win a share of the SEC regular season title in 2000 (it was a 4 way tie that year).
 
#79
#79
Jerry green was never a sec/natty title contender. Cuonzo was never an sec/natty contender. Buzz was never a sec/natty contender. Bruce Pearl and rick Barnes are on different planets than them mediocre nobody’s.

Jerry Green has an SEC championship and finished 1st in the East twice. I'm not surprised that you don't know that.
 
#80
#80
No, you said that "Jerry Green was never a sec/natty title contender." Tennessee did win a share of the SEC regular season title in 2000 (it was a 4 way tie that year).

Correct and Tennessee was the 4/5 best team in a 12 team league that year and never sniffed being a natty contender. Wasn’t in the top 25 for most of that that year. Correct. That’s not elite.
 
#81
#81
Jerry Green has an SEC championship and finished 1st in the East twice. I'm not surprised that you don't know that.

Remind me how much of a national title contender that sec championship team was and also remind me what they did in the sec tourney and how far they actually went? That’s not a natty contender/elite
 
#82
#82
Was Tennessee anywhere close to a natty contender those years. No. And that was their ceiling. Winning the east lol. You made my point.

I'm no Jerry Green apologist, but I don't think you're being exactly fair. We were about 7 minutes from an Elite 8 appearance against UNC in 2000 and yeah we choked, but had we won that we had a very good shot at making our first Final Four.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "contender" is, are you meaning preseason expectations or are you meaning based on how far they made it in the NCAAT?
 
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#84
#84
Bruce got away with everything. Until he lied. That’s on him. If he tells the truth he gets nothing. He lied and it got him. I still prefer high ceilings. And Bruce Pearl is high high ceilings.

That’s the thing.

He lied and got players to lie over the whole BBQ deal. He put himself before the program to cover his own a$$.

It was his selfishness that made me lose respect for Pearl.
 
#85
#85
Remind me how much of a national title contender that sec championship team was and also remind me what they did in the sec tourney and how far they actually went? That’s not a natty contender/elite

You're kind of backpedaling here, you started by saying Green wasn't an NC OR SEC title contender, and he did win an SEC Championship. So now you're focusing on the NC contender part.
 
#86
#86
Correct and Tennessee was the 4/5 best team in a 12 team league that year and never sniffed being a natty contender. Wasn’t in the top 25 for most of that that year. Correct. That’s not elite.
That is just wrong. The 3 teams that Tennessee split with for the SEC Regular Season Title in 2000 were:

Florida: Tennessee beat them twice
LSU: Tennessee played them only once and beat them
Kentucky: Tennessee split their two games, home team won both times

Tennessee was the #1 seed from the East in the 2000 SEC Basketball Tournament. That was because they had the tie breaker with Florida and Kentucky by way of their 3-1 record vs those two teams. They had also beaten LSU head to head.
 
#87
#87
I'm no Jerry Green apologist, but I don't think you're being exactly fair. We were about 7 minutes from an Elite 8 appearance against UNC in 2000 and yeah we choked, but had we won that we had a very good shot at making our first Final Four.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "contender" is, are you meaning preseason expectations or are you meaning based on how far they made it in the NCAAT?
And if I'm not truly sure of my facts, as KnoxvilleVol isn't, I look up such facts before posting and claiming others to be wrong. We were close in 2000, and ranked for most of the year I do believe.
 
#88
#88
That is just wrong. The 3 teams that Tennessee split with for the SEC Regular Season Title in 2000 were:

Florida: Tennessee beat them twice
LSU: Tennessee played them only once and beat them
Kentucky: Tennessee split their two games, home team won both times

Tennessee was the #1 seed from the East in the 2000 SEC Basketball Tournament. That was because they had the tie breaker with Florida and Kentucky by way of their 3-1 record vs those two teams. They had also beaten LSU head to head.

He's also dead wrong about "Wasn't in the Top 25 for most of that year".

Pretty sure they were ranked the entire season.
 
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#89
#89
And if I'm not truly sure of my facts, as KnoxvilleVol isn't, I look up such facts before posting and claiming others to be wrong. We were close in 2000, and ranked for most of the year I do believe.

He's completely wrong about the ranking, we were ranked every week all year. In fact we started at 19th and never got worse than that. We got as high as #5 in mid February and ended at #8 before the tournament and #11 after. We did go 1 and done in the SECT but that's not exactly something that only Green did.
 
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#90
#90
You're kind of backpedaling here, you started by saying Green wasn't an NC OR SEC title contender, and he did win an SEC Championship. So now you're focusing on the NC contender part.

Leave Steven alone. He "runs this town".

Another Brucism. Hilarious that he was thrown out of the West High School gym by a ref his first year here.
 
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#93
#93
He's completely wrong about the ranking, we were ranked every week all year. In fact we started at 19th and never got worse than that. We got as high as #5 in mid February and ended at #8 before the tournament and #11 after. We did go 1 and done in the SECT but that's not exactly something that only Green did.
Yes, that's what I thought as far as rankings in 2000 were concerned. My point with this guy is not who he likes, but that he's incorrectly spewing "facts" in a discussion. I loved Pearl and thought he was a great CEO of the program. But that ship came and left after his lies. He knows he did wrong, but this poster making the claim that basically every successful program cheats if they win is pretty short-sighted.
 
#94
#94
Leave Steven alone. He "runs this town".

Another Brucism. Hilarious that he was thrown out of the West High School gym by a ref his first year here.
For a good portion of the 2011 season, Steven was starting and getting an average of 18 minutes per game. I like Bruce, but that drove me crazy.
 
#95
#95
That is just wrong. The 3 teams that Tennessee split with for the SEC Regular Season Title in 2000 were:

Florida: Tennessee beat them twice
LSU: Tennessee played them only once and beat them
Kentucky: Tennessee split their two games, home team won both times

Tennessee was the #1 seed from the East in the 2000 SEC Basketball Tournament. That was because they had the tie breaker with Florida and Kentucky by way of their 3-1 record vs those two teams. They had also beaten LSU head to head.
So your saying we won it outright because even though it was a claimed tie we won the head to heads and got the 1 seed in sec tournament? Strange because people swear up and down that we won the sec reg title 2 years ago even though we got the 2 seed in the tournament and lost the head to head with the team we shared it with.
 
#96
#96
So your saying we won it outright because even though it was a claimed tie we won the head to heads and got the 1 seed in sec tournament? Strange because people swear up and down that we won the sec reg title 2 years ago even though we got the 2 seed in the tournament and lost the head to head with the team we shared it with.
I wasn't doing anything other than disputing the claim posted by "KnoxvilleVol13" that "Tennessee was the 4/5 best team in a 12 team league that year".
 
#97
#97
I wasn't doing anything other than disputing the claim posted by "KnoxvilleVol13" that "Tennessee was the 4/5 best team in a 12 team league that year".
Oh ok I’m not saying you weren’t I was just looking for clarification. I thought you were trying to make the claim that even though we had a 4 way shared championship that we won it because of head to heads. If that wasn’t what you were saying then I apologize.
 
#98
#98
Seems like Bruce stayed elite this year and Barnes came crashing down. But maybe it’s just my eyes lol.
Have you been paying close attention to the Auburn games? I doubt Auburn makes it far in the tournament; they keep squeaking by some mediocre teams (beat Vandy by 4...I mean, what else is there to say). They aren’t going to continue having refs biased toward them the entire way against better teams during the tournament like they did in the UK game.

If Bruce makes the NIT next year and we get a final four next year, will you be hating on Bruce?
 
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#99
#99
I’m a Bruce guy through and through but the beauty in what Barnes has done here the last few years is bringing back expectations to be elite every year. We’ll be fine next year and everybody hates a down year but he’s gotten us back to high level elite expectations. We can’t forget where we were the whole decade after cutting Bruce loose.
It hasn't even been a whole decade, though. We struggled for two years, and then underachieved thru a season and nearly produced our second ever E8 appearance. A year of Tyndall interrupted by another NCAA investigation, then two recovery years under Barnes, followed by the greatest two year run in school history.

Given the perception, turmoil, and turnover of that time, I think we experienced quite a bit of success in the 8 years since, all things considered (2 S16s and a 2nd rd exit).
 
It hasn't even been a whole decade, though. We struggled for two years, and then underachieved thru a season and nearly produced our second ever E8 appearance. A year of Tyndall interrupted by another NCAA investigation, then two recovery years under Barnes, followed by the greatest two year run in school history.

Given the perception, turmoil, and turnover of that time, I think we experienced quite a bit of success in the 8 years since, all things considered (2 S16s and a 2nd rd exit).
Tennessee has proven to be a resilient basketball program and we are finally on the radar of 5 star recruits. I think the best is yet to come under Barnes.
 

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