Kansas survives Tennessee Basketball with officials help

Tennessee basketball traveled to Lawrence, Kansas, to take on the Jayhawks but fell short thanks to officials push Kansas to the win.

Tennessee basketball has been building some momentum over the past couple of weeks, and if the officials didn’t help Kansas beat the Vols, then they would’ve continued that momentum on Saturday night.

Regardless of what the final score says or what the officials did late in the second half, or the game overall, the Vols went into Allen Fieldhouse and gave Kansas more than they wanted to deal with.

The crowd was hostile, the officials were cheating, and the Vols were playing with one of the best teams in the country.

Tennessee’s offense, for the most part, showed up and performed well in the hostile environment. Yves Pons led the team with 24 points, Jordan Bowden followed with 19 points, and John Fulkerson added to the offensive outburst with 15 points.

The only issue with the offense was that no one else showed up. The seven other players that played on Saturday night combined for ten points. It’s hard to win a game with that production from your bench and two other starters.

The officials helped Kansas in pivotal moments in the game, especially in the final minutes of the second half, and without that then I think the Vols leave Kansas with the win, but that’s college basketball for you and we’ll probably get another taste of it when Kentucky comes around.

Unfortunately, the game goes down in the loss column but it shouldn’t take away from everything the Vols have been doing right over the past couple of weeks and some things they did right against Kansas.

The Vols have three winnable games coming up next on its schedule including its next game against Texas A&M before they play Kentucky for the first time this season.

Rick Barnes and the Vols still have a lot to prove as they’re holding onto their NCAA Tournament hopes, but can’t suffer many more losses from here on out.