University of Tennessee Athletics
Vols Get Warm Welcome Home
March 29, 2010 | Men's Basketball
March 29, 2010
BY DREW EDWARDS
UTSports.com
KNOXVILLE -- Quinn Cannington was the first player who came down the escalator Sunday night in McGhee Tyson Airport.
Red-eyed -- and not because he took a red-eye flight -- the senior walk-on reached baggage claim to find a few hundred fans waiting there.
Only hours before, they watched the Vols come within a point of the program's first Final Four berth in a 70-69 loss to Michigan State.
But the fans, the same ones who helped fill Thompson-Boling Arena all season long and the ones who celebrated regular-season wins over top-ranked Kansas and No. 2 Kentucky came to celebrate the first Tennessee men's basketball team to advance beyond the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament.
"The fans have been behind us through the entire year," said sophomore guard Scotty Hopson, who scored 10 points in Sunday's game. "We've had so many great moments this whole season. It's been great to have them with us."
UT fans flocked to St. Louis, where the Vols upset second-seeded Ohio State, 76-73, on Friday night to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in school history. And despite coming close -- agonizingly close -- to the Final Four, those fans at the airport Sunday night came to celebrate a team that played its best basketball after its best player was dismissed in January.
Shortly after Cannington and some of Tennessee's support staff reached the baggage claim, the rest of the Vols rode down the escalator from the main terminal. Fans sang "Rocky Top" and waved shakers.
They cheered the team, and came close for autographs. Some even hugged players. They clapped head coach Bruce Pearl on the back and shook his hand.
Only a few hours earlier, Pearl talked about how much it hurt to come so close to the Final Four. But as players, coaches and staff spent time with the fans, they began to smile.
It's a loss that will stay with those players and coaches for a long, long time. But Sunday night's reception helped ease the pain, at least a little.
"This definitely puts a warm feeling in our heart that they're still behind us and still love us," Hopson said. "We definitely love them too."
