The timing stinks for Tennessee. It was supposed to be a celebration. The team banquet was that night. Celebrating one of the best seasons in Tennessee men's basketball. The news of Chris Lofton quietly and successfully beating testicular cancer this past year was made public. The good feelings got tempered quite a bit with the news that two players were kicked off the team for good.

Sophomores Duke Crews and Ramar Smith were given the boot.

Violations of the University of Tennessee's substance-abuse policy and academic shortcomings contributed to both departures, sources within the program told the News Sentinel.

"I am disappointed that Duke and Ramar did not meet the mark and did not succeed to the level of our expectations," Pearl said moments before UT's annual basketball banquet.

Both Crews and Smith were All-SEC Freshmen, but stumbled last year.

Smith is rumored to have been dismissed for academic reasons. He had struggled just to get eligible after signing his Letter of Intent. The point guard also had an odd event in the offseason. Last September Smith borrowed a teammate's car, crashed it and then left the scene. No charges were ever filed.

Crews had been suspended for 30 days in the season -- reportedly for failing a drug test. The forward had previously been dinged for having a small amount of marijuana found in his apartment. Under Tennessee student-athlete rules, dismissal is mandatory for a 4th failed drug test. He had also missed a lot of time in the season with an ankle injury and a heart condition.

Tennessee guard Chris Lofton is revealing publicly for the first time what he learned just after he played in the 2007 Sweet Sixteen: He had testicular cancer.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Lofton reveals that an NCAA drug test during the 2007 Tournament revealed that he could have cancer, and that he learned of the diagnosis after Tennessee's season-ending loss to Ohio State. Six days after playing in that game, he underwent surgery. He spent the off-season recovering, and then played the entire 2007-08 season. Only one teammate knew.

"It's the hardest thing I've ever had to go through, but I know now there's nothing out there I can't overcome," Lofton told ESPN.com. "I wanted to deal with it on my terms because I didn't want it being a distraction for our team. I knew if it came out, everything would change. I didn't want it that way."

Now, 14 months after his initial diagnosis Lofton is completely healthy, and he has his sights set on the NBA.

Tennessee was the SEC's brightest hope for the conference's fourth Final Four berth in three years. Those hopes were dashed for good by the Louisville Cardinals, whose strong play was the counterpoint to the Vols' terrible performance in their Sweet 16 matchup.

What went right for Pearl's Volunteers? Not much. When the Vols weren't missing layups or fruitlessly challenging the Cardinals' talented big man, senior David Padgett, they were turning the ball over or missing treys. UT finished .25 from beyond the arc, were outrebounded 42-24, and couldn't come up with a way to deactivate the force-field which was apparently installed above their rim.

Factoid: the University of Tennessee men's basketball team has never advanced past the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament, while the women's basketball team has roughly 2 gazillion national titles and Final Four appearances.

But give Bruce Pearl time. In his short 3-year tenure, he's taken a moribund program and made them a perennial contender. Tennessee will be back... but it'll have to be next year instead of next weekend.

As splendid as his current look is, Bruce Pearl may very well have peaked in high school. These snapshots from the Sharon High School yearbook are pure gold and we all owe a great deal of thanks to TheDirty.com (via With Leather and MJD) for allowing us all to bow down in awe of the teenaged Pearlfro in all its glory.

I'm not really sure what's going on with the cross-dressing although I'd be curious to hear why he drew the line at donning women's shoes.

What I'm surer of than ever is that Pearl's my favorite coach in college basketball. He's one of the few big-time college coaches who doesn't put on a holier-than-thou veneer and remembers that, for all the shaping of young minds and maturing, most of us remember college as being a whole helluva lot of fun. I doubt you'll ever see him assaulting television interviewers or appearing in American Express commericals touting himself as a leader who just happens to coach college basketball. Pearl's having the time of his life at Tennessee and I don't think its any coincidence that he's the coach who got people to realize the Vols play more than just women's basketball.

Ah, who am I kidding. I just love the hair. The marvelous, marvelous hair. Go below the jump for more a recent, but still impressive, photo.

The Bruce Pearl -to- Indiana rumors are officially on.

Over the weekend, Inside the Hall reported that the rumors that Indiana wants to talk to Pearl, the Tennessee coach, were swirling at the NCAA Tournament East Region games in Birmingham, Alabama. And today those rumors hit the big time when they were the subject of a discussion on Pardon the Interruption.

So what to make of the rumors? Obviously, Indiana would love to have a coach as accomplished as Pearl to build the program back up after what is expected to be a low point when the NCAA hands down sanctions for former coach Kelvin Sampson's recruiting violations. But would Pearl really leave?

He would at least consider it -- Indiana is too storied a program, and Pearl has too many ties to the Big Ten and the state of Indiana, not to consider it. But my best guess is that Tennessee will offer him a raise to stay, and that's what he'll do. Pearl has a good thing going in Tennessee, and the situation at Indiana is anything but a good thing right now.

David Letterman was born in Indianapolis, the home of Butler University, and that may be why he's convinced that Butler deserves another chance at playing Tennessee, the team it lost to in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday:

"The Tennessee Volunteers defeated the Butler Bulldogs, 76-71," Letterman said. "Apparently, there still is some time on the clock, so they're going to run the overtime over again. They found that they had let the clock run during a timeout mistakenly, and they think there's a good chance that Butler will be back in the Tournament."

I'm not sure it works that way, but I do like the way Letterman has maintained loyalty to his Indiana teams even after working in New York for three decades. He's no fair-weather fan.

Usually when your team wins 31 games, spends time as the top-ranked team in the country and makes the Sweet 16, you've got a pretty reliable hand on the tiller. The Tennessee Volunteers, then, are quite an unusual team. They accomplished all of that without a steady point guard.

Ramar Smith started most of the second half but steadily diminishing returns put him on the bench for the tournament opener. Senior Jordan Howell returned to the starting five but failed to make an impression which led Bruce Pearl to turn to J.P. Prince for yesterday's win over Butler. That was unusual because Prince spent most of the year as a shooting guard but Pearl had his reasons.

"J.P. is a stat sheet stuffer. We got a situation where I felt like we needed (Prince) on the floor more because he makes great things happen. I think he makes everyone else out there better."

He did stuff the stat sheet (nine points, seven boards, five assists) but his negatives nearly outweighed his positives. His travel (and sixth turnover) with seconds to play could have cost the Vols the game. Smith came back to score four in overtime and further muddy the picture at the one.

The uncertainty at the point highlights how good a job Pearl has done with this team. Better known for his personality than his tactics, Pearl's managed to turn a team without a key component into a huge winner this season. Now he must make the right choice about who to send into the teeth of the Louisville press.

Tennessee has been in a lot of close games this season... and they've won most of them. Their win over Butler in the Round of 32 was no different.

After jumping out to an 11 point lead to start the game, Butler settled in and closed to within two points, ultimately finding themselves down 38-34 at the half. Tennessee once again jumped out to a good start in the second period, leading by as much as 10 points. Mike Green's missed floater was put back by Willie Veasley to make it a tie game with 35 seconds remaining -- and the Bulldogs held on to take the Vols to OT.

A.J. Graves made a lay-in to make it a two-point lead, 68-66 with 1:46 remaining, but it was to be Butler's only lead of the afternoon. Jujuan Smith iced the game with four straight free throws to end Butler's tourney hopes, 76-71.

As a 2-seed, Tennessee is "expected" to make it past the first weekend of the tournament. But Bruce Pearls' Vols can, at this point, say their season has been a success regardless of what transpires next.

The Vols' men's basketball team has never advanced past the Elite Eight. Their goal this year is to go all the way, and this team has the depth and horsepower for that to happen.

The 15 seed American University Eagles played about 35 minutes of tough, aggressive basketball and at times appeared poised to pull off one of the greatest upsets in NCAA Tournament history today, but 2-seed Tennessee was ultimately too much, winning a 72-57 game that was much closer than that score would indicate.

The game wasn't a classic like last night's Duke-Belmont game, but it had its moments, and for much of the early portion of the game it was American, not Tennessee, that looked like it had come to play. Most impressive was American's rebounding edge of 37-25.

It was still a one-possession game, with Tennessee up 54-51, with less than five minutes to play, but when Tennessee needed big shots, it got them. JaJuan Smith, in particular, was impressive, making 4-of-8 from three-point range.

Next up for Tennessee will be the Butler-South Alabama winner. The Volunteers will be favored, but they'll need a better effort than they put up today against American.

The best game of the first day of the NCAA Tournament was Duke's near-miss against Belmont, when the scrappy underdogs from the small conference gave the big dogs from the powerhouse conference a scare.

Could we have another game like that today?

The way American is playing against Tennessee early, it sure looks like it. American is, as I'm typing this, up 13-12 with 9:54 remaining in the first half, and American is looking a bit like Belmont did last night, playing its own game and not pressing against the more athletic opponents?

Can they keep this up for 30 more minutes of basketball? Not likely. But after a first day devoid of upsets, it's nice to think we might have a shot at a huge one in the first game of Day 2.

UPDATE: Tennessee leads 29-22 at the half.

UPDATE 2: It's now tied, 40-40, with 11:05 to go.