The Tigers' decade-plus efforts to duck the Vols in basketball played into Nichols' conditional release in an absurd and unsurprising way.
Austin Nichols, a consensus five-star power forward in the Class of 2013, signed with Memphis over Cuonzo Martin's Vols among others. He averaged 13.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.4 blocks as a sophomore last season for an 18-14 (10-8 American) Tiger team that failed to make the NCAA Tournament or the NIT.
Nichols asked for a transfer last week, which the Tigers initially denied. When Memphis eventually allowed the transfer today, as most schools always do in the face of bad PR, the Tigers excluded all future opponents from contacting him.