March Madness: Ranking the Top 10 games of 2019 NCAA Tournament
By Adam Childs
8. Tennessee 83 – Iowa 77 (OT)
Big first half lead? Check. Huge second half comeback? Check. Fantom foul calls that benefit team coming back? Check. Overtime game? Check. Top scorer for winning team not playing in overtime? Check. This game had a little bit of everything, but in the end, it ended up being one of the best games of the tournament.
Tennessee came out firing and completely dominated the Hawkeyes in the first half. They jumped up early and carried that to a 21 point lead at halftime. Everyone knew that Iowa was not great on defense but they could make it up with their offense, but for the first half, the Hawkeyes offense was nowhere to be found as they scored just 28 points and looked lost.
The second half was a completely different story as Iowa found their shot and their defense and started to chip away at the big Tennessee lead. They would come all the way back capped by a phantom foul called on Tennessee on a three-point attempt by Jordan Bohannon. He would make all three free throws to tie the game with just under three minutes to play. After some back and forth int he final minutes, the game would head to overtime.
The surprise of overtimes was not that Tennessee came out and won the game, it was that Rick Barnes would leave one of his leading scorers Admiral Schofield on the bench for the entire extra period. He did have four fouls, but in a do or die game, it was weird he was on the bench. As it turns out Schofield told Barnes to keep him on the bench because he wasn’t into the flow of the game like normal because of foul trouble. It paid off for the Volunteers as they had little trouble in overtime. The Volunteers survived blowing a big lead and Iowa’s remarkable comeback come up just a little short. It may not have been pretty but this game had all the ingredients of an entertaining game.