Tennessee 66, Illinois 64
Licensed to Ill
Tennessee survived a hostile crowd, terrible shooting, about a billion fouls to escape Champaign, IL with a W on Saturday. I personally love when the win probability chart tells the story of the game, and this game’s chart certainly does that.
Despite the Illini jumping out to an early lead, and a 7-2 mini-run by the home team in the doldrums of the 1st half, the game was still trending in Tennessee’s favor for the vast majority of the opening frame. UT went to the locker room with just a one point lead, but a 65.8% win probability.
That win probability rose to 72% three minutes into the second half, but from there the game fell off a cliff. a 10-0 Illinois run gave the Illini a 6-point lead (their largest of the game) and a 65% win probability that grew to near 75% as the game drew close to the 10-minute mark.
It was at this point, with Chaz Lanier already fouled out and what felt like the rest of the UT roster in foul trouble, that Darlinstone Dubar became one of the day’s first heroes. Within a 90-second period, Dubar hit a floater in the paint, blocked a shot at the other end, rebounded the shooter’s follow-up, and drilled a 3 to cut the Illinois’ lead to two points, and the Vols’ win probability jumped from 26% to 59.9%.
From there, the momentum of the game was in UT’s favor, and though the going never got easy, Tennessee’s win probability was still at 63% when Illinois tied the game at 64 with 5.7 seconds left in the game. That’s when Rick Barnes pulled out a play he learned from legendary DeMatha High School coach Morgan Wootten, back when Barnes was an assistant at George Mason in 1980 and tasked with asking area coaches for their favorite plays to be featured in the “Coach’s Corner” segment of the Patriots’ basketball newsletter. Whatever the origin of the play, Jordan Gainey, who Illinois coach Brad Underwood told his team is “not a handler” during a time out, took the ball coast-to-coast for the game-winning basket, and the Vols survived.
It was a heck of a game, one not to be forgotten by the living fan, and one that tested and revealed the character of a team that has earned their #1 ranking in the early third of this season.