Iowa's Tyler Cook, center, shoots over Tennessee's Grant Williams, left, and Yves Pons in the first half of their NCAA tournament second-round game Sunday in Columbus, Ohio.COLUMBUS, Ohio - The NCAA basketball tournament maxim "survive and advance" has never been more evident to this year's Tennessee Volunteers than it was Sunday.
But they did both.
The sixth-ranked, second-seeded Vols built a 21-point halftime lead, saw their advantage completely evaporate near the end of regulation and needed overtime to defeat Iowa 83-77 to advance to this week's South Regional semifinals in Louisville, Kentucky, where they will face third-seeded Purdue (25-9) on Thursday. The Boilermakers beat sixth-seeded Villanova, the 2018 national champion, 87-61 on Saturday night.
It's the eighth Sweet 16 appearance in program history for the Vols (31-5), who used a huge first-half onslaught to seemingly take control of Sunday's second-round game but had to hold on for dear life after the 10th-seeded Hawkeyes (23-12) finished erasing their 25-point deficit to tie the game at 67 with 2:39 to play.
Tennessee's Lamonte Turner answered with a 3-pointer, followed two possessions later by a Jordan Bowden free throw with less than a minute to play, but the Hawkeyes answered with an Isaiah Moss layup and a pair of Joe Wieskamp free throws with 20 seconds to play, and a Bone missed 3-pointer shortly before the buzzer led to overtime with the score tied at 71.
The Vols scored the first seven points of the extra period - Grant Williams scored four and Bone made a 3-pointer - and the Hawkeyes never got closer than four, with that coming on a layup by Jordan Bohannon with 11 seconds remaining.
The Vols led by 23 points during the first half and were ahead 49-28 at the break. Admiral Schofield had 17 of his 19 points, including a trio of 3s, before halftime. Lamonte Turner scored eight points before halftime, including two of the Vols' six 3s to that point.
Iowa cut Tennessee's lead to 53-44 as the Vols' offense sputtered to start the second half with Schofield and forward Grant Williams on the bench, but upon their return Schofield hit a jumper and Williams dunked off a Turner drive-and-dish to build the lead back up to 13.
The Hawkeyes wouldn't go away, though, trimming their deficit to five after Isaiah Moss hit the first of two free throws and missed the second before Nicholas Baer grabbed the offensive rebound and found Bohannon for a 3 to cut it to 61-56.
Williams had 19 points to match Schofield for the team lead, and Williams also had seven rebounds, five assists, four steals and three blocks. Turner finished with 15 points and six rebounds, while Bone had 14 points and three assists. Alexander had eight points and nine rebounds.
Bohannon led the Hawkeyes with 18.
Here's the good, the bad and the verdict for Tennessee from Sunday's win:
THE GOOD
The first half. Tennessee's guards showed on both ends of the floor that their quickness was going to be key in the game, and when Bone, Turner and Jordan Bowden weren't disrupting things on the defensive end, Bone and Turner's playmaking abilities led to some easy baskets. Alexander made some big plays on both ends of the floor with his offensive rebounding and defensive length. In overtime, the Vols recalibrated and locked in on both ends.
THE BAD
The second half. The poor offense started to affect the defense, with the Vols turning the ball over 10 times and allowing the Hawkeyes to get out in transition for easy baskets. Once the ball started to drop through the basket for Iowa, it started to feed off the momentum, which created some bad defensive possessions for the Vols.
THE VERDICT
Should the Vols win the next two games and advance to their first-ever Final Four, nobody will remember Sunday. But in the moment, it's easy to see why so many were nervous. Losing the 25-point lead was seemingly just as easy as building it in the first place, and while Tennessee was able to lock in when necessary, the Vols won't leave Columbus having earned any style points with a pair of wins that were closer than they needed to be.
This is developing coverage. Stay with the Times Free Press for updates.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.