Tennessee ending almost makes up for '82 basketball loss to Vols

Any other "old-timers" out there ? (I graduated from LSU in 1984). For those too young or have forgotten, in 1982 at the Assembly Center, Tennessee truly did "steal" one 54-53 on a hotly disputed basket well after time should have expired.

After blowing an early 8-0 then 17-2 lead, Tennessee (who was ranked in the top 20 all that year and wound up co-champs with Kentucky), kept coming back and finally caught up at the end. LSU went back up, 53-52 with :08 left. Timeout, Vols.

Tennessee's Michael Brooks brought the ball up court rather lesiurely. When he got to mid-court, he looked at the clock as did the crowd. :08. Clock never moved. Dale Brown and the LSU crowd went nuts and the clock finally started. Meanwhile Brooks passed around and Dale Ellis fired up a jumper that missed. At the "buzzer", their center Dan Federmann tipped one in right as time expired (which was questionable in and of itself). Tennessee 54 LSU 53.

As you can imagine Brown, the team and crowd went crazy. After about two minutes at the scorers table Tennessee coach Don DeVoe motioned his team to the locker room after a huddle with the refs and Brown. They ran to the locker room knowing they had stolen one.

Brown stayed on the court as did LSU and very,very few fans -- almost no one in the student section left.(probably a good thing it was Mardi Gras weekend as the student section was normally packed). Finally after 45 minutes James Wharton, chancellor at the time, addressed the crowd saying the SEC was going to look into it. Then he said Tennessee couldn't replay the last :08 since they had a plane to catch. That was not well received. I found out later from a friend who was something like "visitor locker room mgr" or some such thing that UT went straight to the bus in uniform so they wouldn't have to come back.

Word at first was the last possession would be replayed in Lexington at the SEC tournament in three weeks. Game stayed in question all weekend until Monday the SEC said, tough luck LSU, Tennessee wins.

Shove it Vols. It took almost 29 yrs but shove it.