The CheckerBoard

That was such an awesome win. Seeing all the Orange in St Louis and the cameraderie of the fans was something I haven't seen in a long time...football or basketball.

But probably my fondest memory of the Bruce Pearl era was his first season when we went down to Texas. They were ranked top 5 (maybe #2) but just off a shellacking to Duke. We went down there and beat the living hell out of them. I remember a sequence in the first half when JaJuan crossed one of their guards and pulled from 25 feet. Then knocked down another from deep a minute later.

I remember thinking "Wow. This ain't the same Vols we're used to seeing". Something was different and we had ourselves a program for once.

I ran into Bruce at the UT vs NC ST football game last year in Atlanta. Great guy, he was wearing an orange shirt and pulling for old UT. We talked for a few minutes. Sure was surprised when I saw him.