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Forget football Harris, Vols have Tennessee buzzing about basketball
By Carl Bialik, CNNSI.com Less than a month before the opening kickoff of the football season, championship fever is raging in Knoxville, Tenn. At the malls near the University of Tennessee, fans approach Tony Harris and his Volunteer teammates, full of expectations. "People stop us," Harris says, "and say, 'I know you're going to take us to the Final Four and win the championship.'"
Reaching the Final Four is a seemingly formidable goal for a team that had never won more than one game in the NCAA tournament until last season. But since Harris's arrival, Tennessee has steadily improved, from a first-round exit his freshman year to a second-round departure his sophomore season to a Sweet 16 berth this past March. And, as a result, basketball is emerging from football's shadow in Knoxville. "People are noticing us now more and more," Harris says. "It's not just football this, football that. We're getting packed houses every night. So things have changed." Harris is on campus this summer, working to ensure the program's rise continues next year. Each day, after attending a morning class, he works out in the football complex, and then he does fitness and footwork drills. Finally, he works out on the court with senior forward Isiah Victor. They practice ballhandling -- dribbling through chairs, speed dribbling, one-on-one dribbling contests. Sometimes they don't even take a shot. Harris is always looking to improve, but he also maintains that last season he was in control on the court. "I learned how to calm down and be more poised," he says. "My first two years, I was a young guy out there, just ripping and rushing." Still, Harris was disappointed in his play in Tennessee's loss to North Carolina in the South Regional semifinals. The Vols may have won a school-record 26 games and the SEC championship last season, but they squandered a nine-point lead in the second half to the Tar Heels, who rode a 13-point run to a 74-69 win. "I felt like we had the game in our hands," he says. "We just let it slip away." Harris shot 1 for 10 in the game -- his field goal percentage in six career NCAA tournament games is just 22% -- and did not make a basket until 13.6 seconds remained. "As a team we made some critical mistakes that we'll learn from," he says. "I think if we keep our heads on right and play hard and smart, we won't make those same mistakes. And I was disappointed, but I was learning at the same time how to lead."
Harris has grown comfortable at Tennessee, but the Memphis native did not always know he wanted to spend four years in Knoxville. "When I was coming up I liked Georgia Tech because they produced a lot of guards," Harris says. "I thought I could see myself going there, playing in the shadows of Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury, Mark Price." But Tennessee did a better job of selling the McDonald's All-America on its academic opportunities. "Most schools were just coming in and talking about what I can do for their basketball program," says Harris, a psychology major who will graduate next summer. "But they were talking about education and getting a degree. That was what my family and I wanted to hear." Harris, who took a sociology course on campus this summer, plans to graduate
with a psychology degree next year. But first, he and his Vols teammates will
try to make fans in Knoxville forget about
football.
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