Before Tennessee and Texas square off on the basketball court this Saturday night in Austin, the Vol Hoops team wanted to provide some background information on top. Not specifically information pertaining to the players on the court, but more so relating to the history between both states.
In Tennessee’s game preview that was released on Friday, a history lesson was added going all the way back to 1836. Rocky Top Insider’s Ryan Schumpert posted the section of the game notes, titled “If It Weren’t for Tennessee, Texas Would be ‘North Mexico'”, to Twitter.
It is absolutely awesome that this was included in @Vol_Hoops' game notes for Saturday night's matchup at Texas. pic.twitter.com/F5B5SWrV1J
— Ryan Schumpert (@rschump00) January 28, 2022
The points include:
- There can be no doubt Texas owes a great debt of gratitude for its statehood to the fierce men from Tennessee.
- Before the Alamo fell. 33 Tennesseans, the largest number of defenders provided by any state-nearly four times as many as from Texas-kept Mexican General Santa Anna’s overwhelming army at bay for 13 days against unbelievable odds.
- On March 6, 1836, the brave Tennessee Volunteers and the other Alamo defenders were overrun and breathed their last.
- However, the crucial days the Volunteers slowed down the Mexican army gave another Tennessean, Sam Houston, enough time to gallop through Texas raising an army to defend what would become the Lone Star State. This army defeated Santa Anna in no small part because of the contributions of Tennessee’s Volunteers.
Heading into the game on Saturday night in Austin, only Tennessee will enter as a ranked team. The No. 18-ranked Vols will enter Austin with a 14-5 record, although, Texas has not been bad this year at all. The Longhorns hold a 15-5 record and are currently third in the Big 12 standings.
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes will make his return to Austin this weekend, a place in which he was the head coach from 1998 until 2015. Earlier this week, Barnes spoke about returning to Texas. Barnes’ full extended quote is below.
Tennessee and Texas will tip-off at 8:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. CT this Saturday night in Austin, TX.
“You guys might not believe this, but I really haven’t thought about it,” Barnes said about the upcoming Texas trip after the Florida game on Wednesday night. “I’ve always been able to stay locked into what we’re doing right here. But starting tomorrow I do know I have to talk to a couple of old buddies of mine there. I can tell you what I told the fans back there, I have incredible respect for the University of Texas. I spent 17 years there. There’s not a person on that campus that I don’t have great respect for. I have two former assistant coaches that left to become head coaches that have gone back to coach Beard’s staff. I know Chris Beard, I know there’s going to be a lot of my former players there. They understand me probably more than anybody. They know that I’m not going to let anything get in the way of our preparation to win this game. Will it be different? I don’t know. I’m seven years removed. I’m a Tennessee Volunteer, I really am. Texas is a big part of me, and always will be. But I’ve been gone seven years. And this is the last year of the Erwin Center, and I coached in there for 17 years. I have a lot of fond memories of it. If you think about it, we’re up on everyone in the league. They’re going to be in our league in the next year or two, whenever it might happen. So it will be a trip every other year. We’re doing it, and I think it’s the right thing for our program. It’s part of the challenge, and it’s a basketball game that we have to get prepared for. They had a big win last night, I do know that. On the road, and it’s hard to win on the road anywhere. They had a very convincing win against TCU, so I’m sure they’re feeling good. We’re going to have to play better than we did tonight, I will tell you that.”
