It certainly was not Chris Lofton's best game as a Tennessee Volunteer.

However, when his team needed it most the senior guard came up with yet another big play as the Vols escaped with an 89-87 win over upset-minded South Carolina in the Southeastern Conference tournament quarterfinals.

Lofton's 3-pointer with 11 seconds left proved to be the game-winning shot on a day when the Vols' all-time leader in 3-point shots made finished with only 10 points and shot just 2-for-10 from long range.

Devan Downey paced South Carolina's upset bid with 26 points and Zam Frederick scored 24 for the Gamecocks.

Wayne Chism led the Vols with a career-high 23 points. The sophomore also set a new career-best with five blocks and added seven rebounds. Tyler Smith scored all 13 of his points in the second half, including 11 straight for the Vols prior to Lofton's game-winner.

The win was Tennessee's first SEC tournament win since 2005 and pushes Tennessee into the SEC tournament semifinals for the first time since 1991.

The Vols will face Arkansas for a berth in the finals. Tennessee sqaured off with the Razorbacks once in the regular season and won 93-71 at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Game time was originally scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. However, Friday night's contest between Kentucky and Georgia was postponed due to severe weather in Atlanta and a revised schedule has not been released.

My Take

I was deeply disappointed in the way the Tennessee performed to open play in the SEC tournament. For much of the afternoon it appeared only a few Volunteers were ready to play entering the game.

Chism provided a huge lift for the team, and had it not been for his play through the first 30 minutes of this game I think the Vols would have lost their opening SEC tourney game once again.

Brian Williams also deserves some recognition for his play against the Gamecocks. The freshman center provided a lift with nine points and three boards in just 13 minutes of play.

However, the Vols stars did not come to play today until late in the contest.

Tyler Smith did next to nothing before the last 10 minutes of the game and Lofton's struggles were chronicled above.

JaJuan Smith did have a solid game offensively as he managed to finish with 19 points. His defense on Downey left a lot to be desired, though.

Smith is one of the nation's best defenders when he comes to play, but Friday he was more concerned with being flashy on the offensive end than playing the solid defense he's capable of playing. He is the key to forcing turnovers for the Vols, and today the Gamecocks only turned it over seven times.

Those three players combined to turn the ball over 11 times, and the Vols turned it over 18 times as a team.

The Vols tough past in the SEC tournament is well documented, so maybe it took a win like this to get that monkey of the team's back. South Carolina also played an inspired performance for head coach Dave Odom in what turned out to be his last game.

When it's all said and done a win is still a win. This team has shown it can win without its best performance a number of times this season and the Vols can honestly probably get away with not playing their best games and still win this entire SEC tournament.

However, if this team is to win a National Championship as has been the stated goal by players, coaches and fans alike, at some point they will have to play up to potential.

But if the Vols can find a way to do that, cutting down the nets in San Antonio is a strong possibility.