On Saturday afternoon, MPW, his father ROW, and I watched the Tennessee basketball team play Belmont in their last game before Christmas at Thompson-Boling Arena. ROW is a Belmont alum and was decked out in support of the Bruins.
They were running late. On the way to pick me up, ALF offered ROW a great seat just behind the Vols’ bench that he could not resist. I love ROW but this also meant that we did not sit with the fan rooting for the visiting squad so I was okay with not sitting with him. Besides, we still made the game on time. I wished for a close game for ROW’s sake. Be careful what you wish for...
We saw a lot of people we knew. Maybe you see more people when you show up on time. We ran into BCA and DA as well as AC. AMTT and JCT and CDL all sat in our section. 317 is the section of champions. We would not sit there long during this game.
For the first time all season, we got to see the opening video montage. The Vols come out to Young Jeezy’s “I Put On For My City”. I was aghast. If they were going to use this song, why not use the personalized Bobby Maze version. See this post for details.
Shortly after the game began, we shifted seats. JTL’s father-in-law was not coming and he left us his seat numbers. We sat in section 321, at midcourt. The view was good but we sat by some annoying fans. I cannot stand fans who repeatedly refer to players by their first names. We were not done upgrading our seats.
Before moving down, we may have sat through the worst halftime performance in history. The Alcoa High School step team performed. I am not sure that qualifying for this team is not simply being rejected from the cheerleading and dance squads. I like the concept but they were awful. Later the Karns Elementary School students were honored. I think they should just give the kids a ball and let them go. Who schedules these things anyway? Except for the retired chiropractor hitting three’s last year, the halftime entertainment has been horrid.
At halftime, ROW called us to let us know there were seats in the lower deck with him. We sat in Section 103. We experienced the strange phenomenon of looking up to see the scoreboard. Congressman Duncan was three rows in front of us and new Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin two rows in front of him. I was hoping Kiffin would recruit Emmanuel Negedu to be a tight end. A 6'6" power forward doesn’t have much a future at the professional level but he would be ideal as a tight end. Besides, the football team needs him more right now.
I know what you’re thinking. Kiffin’s wife was not there.
The game was great and very closely contested. The Vols eeked out a 79-77 victory. Scotty Hopson had the best and worst play of the game. He had a steal and reverse dunk that was beautiful. With 10:55 in the second half, he also air balled a free throw shorter than any I have ever seen. It must have missed the rim by two feet.
ROW was in heaven and did not wish to leave even after the game was over. So we kept our stellar seats and stayed for the Bruce Pearl Show after the game. Tyler Smith (23 points) was player of the game and interviewed first. Then the coach came out. Pearl announced that he would be celebrating Hanukkah the next night and Christmas with his girlfriend’s family later in the week.
Afterwards, ROW wanted to see if we could find the Belmont bus. We chased down a bus but it was not Belmont basketball team. Tara VanDerveer walked out followed by her Stanford women’s basketball team. Evidently they were there for a walkthrough before their game the following night.
In the most important stats of the game, Steven Pearl checked in from 6:13-2:49 and 1:03-0:06 remaining in the first half. He scored at the 6:01 mark, hitting a free throw. What were the odds of him scoring before flopping? With 4:36 he did try to draw a charge. He was unsuccessful.
In other sights and sounds from the game, my allergist Dr. Bob was on the kiss cam for the second time this season.
Finally, several of our players wore high socks. Is this coming back? I hope so. I would be back in fashion again. Well, for the first time anyway.
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