Tennessee’s stay in Nashville didn’t last long. The 25th-ranked Volunteers came back to beat Auburn on Thursday to advance, but a hot-shooting Duke Miles and Vanderbilt sent Tennessee back east on Friday.
Miles poured in 30 points to power the Commodores, who didn’t have much more offensively. However, Miles shooting 4-5 from three-point range and 11-14 overall was enough to doom the Volunteers, which saw Nate Ament score just one basket from the field.
Vanderbilt blanketed Ament, who never really
got going following his big game against Auburn. Ament forced the issue late to get to the free throw line, where he made some progress, but couldn’t get anything to fall from the field.
“Well, we talked about it last night,” Rick Barnes said after the loss. “Again, we even thought about maybe not playing him at all because, again, just as a precautionary for next week. But he said there’s no way I’m not going to play.
“When you don’t go for 10 days, I don’t care if it’s ankle, knee or anything, when you play as physical of a game as we did last night, you’re going to be a little sore in other areas, not just that area.”
Ament missed the final two games of the regular season nursing his ankle injury, which he suffered in the first half against Alabama two weeks ago. Barnes admitted that playing three games in three days probably wouldn’t have been the best idea for his healing ankle heading into the NCAA Tournament.
“I always say sometimes there’s a blessing in disguise,” Barnes said. “You always want to win, but if we’d have won today, played tomorrow and won, would we have played him tomorrow? I don’t even know.
“He’s not 100%. We know it. But in his mind it doesn’t matter, he wants to play. Maybe the loss today gives Ja’Kobi Gillespie a chance to get more rest. It will give Nate a chance to recover.”
Tennessee now waits to see where they land in the NCAA Tournament, which will be revealed on Sunday evening. The Volunteers have been up and down all season long, and the finish to the season was no different. Tennessee had chances to move up to a No. 4 seed, but now likely will land on the five or six line. All questions will be answered tomorrow.
For Ament, another week of rest can only help.
