Wrapped Up In a Series Of Twists

COLUMBUS, Ohio

March memories in college basketball are about joy and heartbreak. Anyone who watches the NCAA basketball tournament knows that an inch here or there, a whistle blown or not blown, a pass deflected or not deflected often leads to moments the winners and losers will remember forever.

Virginia and Tennessee played one of those games here Sunday, a second-round classic on a weekend filled with remarkable games and finishes. It was a game that began as a track meet and ended as a chess match.

"I like to talk about the process of a game," said Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl, whose team advanced with a 77-74 win only after Sean Singletary's 23-footer from the right wing spun out as time expired. "Those last few seconds were all about kids executing. Virginia executed perfectly on the last play, and got Singletary a good look at the basket. It didn't go in." He smiled. "I guess that makes me a genius."

On this day -- Pearl's 47th birthday -- it made him and his team a winner. But it would be simplistic at best, unfair at worst, to label Virginia a loser. In fact, the case can be made that if not for a fluke play late in the first half, the Cavaliers would be heading to San Antonio next week instead of the Volunteers.

That play came late in the first half. J.R. Reynolds, who had been superb in Virginia's first-round win over Albany, had picked up right where he left off. He was burying three-pointers from everywhere -- most of them with a hand in his face -- and when the Tennessee defense extended to deny him the three, he drove to the basket and scored. Before the half was over, he had 22 points.

In the final minute of the half, he went to the basket again. This time though, in a scrum of bodies, Reynolds's right foot came down on someone's ankle. He rolled the ankle slightly, not seriously enough to force him out of the game, but just enough to affect the way he was shooting the ball.

"You could see he didn't have the same lift when he went up to shoot after that," Pearl said. "I ran some plays to drive the ball at him at the other end, but they did a good job with defensive help a couple times when we went by him."

Reynolds's defense is not the key to his game; his shooting is. He made 4 of 8 three-point attempts in the first half, 0 of 3 in the second. He had just four points after the injury.

Even so, the Cavaliers had a chance to escape, in part because reserve Adrian Joseph produced 10 second-half points and because Singletary, on a day when he struggled with his shot, simply would not give up. Unable to make a three-point shot until the last minute of the game, Singletary adjusted, began taking the ball to the basket and got to the free throw line, where he made 10 of 12 foul shots. Tennessee led most of the second half, but couldn't pull away. So it came down to the final 30 seconds with the two coaches dueling with one another.

Dane Bradshaw made two free throws with 28 seconds left to put the Vols up 71-67, Singletary answered six seconds later with two of his own. That was when Pearl decided to put the game into the hands of his best player, all-American guard Chris Lofton. Every inbounds play was designed to get the ball to him.