by Knoxville News-Sentinel

You can't get off to a lousy start against a good Kansas team with a crazy crowd raising the venerable roof of a college basketball shrine like Phog Allen Fieldhouse. If you do, you're doomed. Well, you watched the game on TV. You saw what happened. Tennessee turned it over on the opening tip. A 6-0 Kansas lead became 14-7. Then it became 25-9. After that, the final spread was academic. But I suspected Tennessee was in trouble before that. When the team lined up across the court for the national anthem, Tennessee's players, one by one, did an about-face, turning toward a flag above the end zone. The coaches stayed fixed on the flag at center court. So you had the team facing one direction, the coaches another. Already, disorientation. And the opening tip hadn't gone in the air. There's defi nitely something to that banner hanging high at one end of the court:

"Pay Heed, All Who Enter: Beware of The Phog"

Tennessee would lose this one, 92-85. It would lose because it started the game in phog. And it wasn't just UT's phreshmen who opened in a phog.

As the Jayhawks were racing off to their 16-point lead, Tyler Smith had one basket. Wayne Chism was unaccounted for.

Smith and Chism eventually engaged. To look at their box scores, you'd have to say they played fairly well. Smith scored 21 points, had nine rebounds. Chism had 17 and eight, respectively, and tied a school record by blocking six shots.

"We did not start well,'' said Pearl. "Our best players did not start well.''

Kansas started well. Here's how the 25-9 margin was created: The Jayhawks hit 11 of their first 13 shots, including 10 in a row. Nine of them were either dunks or layups. "They came out and got what they wanted,'' said Smith. "Defensively,'' said Pearl, "it didn't matter what we did.''

Not to pick on Smith and Chism. Nobody in orange started well.

Scotty Hopson, the only freshman in UT's starting five, was largely invisible until the final minute of the first half. Bobby Maze had defensive troubles from the get-go with Kansas point guard Sherron Collins.

Brian Williams, UT's big man off the bench, brought nothing to the table this day. Seven minutes. Four fouls. Zero rebounds. Zero points.

With numbers like that, you'd have thought he was matched up against Wilt Chamberlain.

In a manner of speaking, Tennessee was matched up against the ghost of Wilt Chamberlain and all the rest of Kansas' glorious basketball history.

This gym is named for the coach who was coached by James Naismith, the man who invented basketball. Naismith is buried just outside of town. Two of Allen's KU players were named Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith. You might have heard of them.

Danny Manning, hero the 1988 NCAA championship team, is an assistant to coach Bill Self, a living, breathing totem of what Kansas stands for.

"To play on a fl oor like this,'' said Smith, "to see the national championship banners and all the history that's come with this school, yeah, we wanted to win. But it's a great honor to be in this building.''

For those critical fi rst eight minutes, the Vols played as if they were honored to be invited into Kansas' world. That timidity was all the opening the Jayhawks needed.

"It's a great crowd and a great atmosphere,'' said UT's J.P. Prince, "but that has nothing to do with it.

"That's on us. Playing with energy and heart, that's on us.''

The Vols eventually did play with energy and heart. If they hadn't, it could have really gotten ugly. Kentucky once lost in this building 150-95.

So, to Vols' credit, they didn't quit.

It was just that they didn't start. And when the phog finally lifted, it was too late.

Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276 or strangem@ knoxnews.com.

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