Title goes to Tennessee
Since Tennessee beat Memphis and moved to No. 1 for the first time in school history the Volunteers have played three straight three-point games.
They lost 72-69 to Vanderbilt in their first game as a top-ranked team early last week and then beat Kentucky 63-60 on Sunday.
After dropping to fourth in the rankings, Tennessee had another close one Wednesday night, beating Florida 89-86 to set a school record with its 27th victory and clinch its first Southeastern Conference regular-season title since 1967.
"You hate to equate it to what's bigger, but it's clearly one of the biggest wins of the last three years," Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said. "To win it outright against the competition we're facing is special.
"I hope everyone back home is celebrating. You have to respect the competition to appreciate how difficult it was for us to do this on a night Florida played great basketball."
JaJuan Smith scored 23 points and Chris Lofton added 21 for the Volunteers (27-3, 13-2), who trailed by 16 points in the first half.
Derrick Rose scored 19 points and Chris Douglas-Roberts added 18 as the Tigers (29-1, 15-0 Conference USA) extended their road winning streak to 18 games and finished unbeaten on the road for the first time since 1960-61, going 10-0.
Gerald Henderson scored 19 points to lead five Blue Devils in double figures and set up Saturday's showdown between Duke and top-ranked North Carolina for the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season championship.
Marcus Landry scored 15 points for the Badgers (25-4, 15-2), who clinched at least a share of the Big Ten regular-season championship. They finish the season at Northwestern on Saturday and a victory would give them the outright championship.Talor Battle had 10 points for the visiting Nittany Lions (14-15, 6-11).
Shan Foster, Vanderbilt's all-time leading scorer, had a career-high 42 points and hit his final nine 3-point attempts, the last with 2.7 seconds left in overtime. Foster, who missed his first six 3-point attempts, scored Vanderbilt's final eight points. The Senior Night victory allowed the Commodores (25-5, 10-5 Southeastern Conference) to finish 19-0 at home .
Eric Gordon scored nine of his 20 points during a decisive late run and D.J. White had 17 points in his final home game for the Hoosiers (25-5, 14-3). Indiana, which has won 25 regular-season games for the first time since 1992-93, is tied for second in the conference with Purdue, one game behind Wisconsin.
Luke Harangody scored 20 points and the Fighting Irish (23-6, 13-4) became the first Big East team to go undefeated at home in conference play in consecutive seasons. Notre Dame extended its Big East home winning streak to 18 games, two shy of the league record set by Pittsburgh over three seasons, ending in 2004. The Irish extended their overall home winning streak to 37 games, one shy of the school record set from 1943-48.
