One of the best finishes of this college basketball season came between two of the best teams in the country. Jahmai Mashack's deep 3-pointer at the buzzer gave No. 5 Tennessee a miraculous 79-76 win over No. 6 Alabama and secure a massive win in the SEC.
The game came down to the wire, but it still required a furious comeback from Rick Barnes and the Volunteers in the final 30 seconds of the game.
Chaz Lanier's monster and-one set up an offensive rebound off of the missed free throw, followed by a foul that allowed Tennessee to tie the game. Then, following an Alabama turnover with 3.8 seconds to go, Mashack brought the ball up the floor and etched his name into Tennessee basketball lore forever.
As it turns out, Mashack's heroic final shot almost never happened. The play was designed for Mashack to get the ball to point guard Zakai Zeigler, but Zeigler couldn't get open. As a result, Barnes was trying to call a timeout and never even saw the final shot, via Grant Ramey of On3 Sports.
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“I was calling time out,” Barnes said, per Ramey. “I didn’t see the play.”
It's a good thing that the official didn't see Barnes, as Tennessee would have had just about one second to get a good look following the timeout. As it stands, the Volunteers are now fourth in the SEC at 11-5 and have a chance to finish in second ahead of Alabama and Florida. Both are 12-4 in league play as of now.
This win also clinched the outright regular season conference title for Auburn, so this is a crushing loss for Alabama to take. It becomes even more frustrating when you see that even Barnes wasn't happy with the final shot, but the Crimson Tide made plenty of mistakes that they can look back on and try to fix.
This Tennessee basketball team should be able to close the season strong with a road game against a slumping Ole Miss team and then a home date with last-place South Carolina to close the regular season. The Volunteers have still never been to a Final Four, but they have the type of team that could make a deep NCAA Tournament run this season.
