Author Archives: Will Shelton

The Vols are off until Friday night, plenty of time to celebrate an SEC Championship and an impressive slate of awards:

⭐️ #SECMBB POSTSEASON HONORS ⭐️

+ COY : Rick Barnes
+ POY : Grant Williams
+ All-SEC : Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield
+ 6th Man : Lamonté Turner pic.twitter.com/NX4d0mFziJ

— Tennessee Basketball (@Vol_Hoops) March 6, 2018

Rick Barnes is the first Vol to earn SEC Coach of the Year since Bruce Pearl in 2008. Ron Widby, Mike Edwards, Bernard King, Ernie Grunfeld, Dale Ellis, and Tony White combined to win eight SEC Player of the Year awards from 1967-87. But since then, only Ron Slay (2003) and Chris Lofton (2007) have captured the league’s biggest individual prize, which now belongs to Grant Williams.

It’s a great week. How might it get even greater for Tennessee?

In Tuesday’s Bracket Matrix (featuring 130 entries!) the Vols are the third No. 3 seed, with an average seeding of exactly 3; five entries have the Vols at No. 2, five at No. 4, and 120 at No. 3. That’s a pretty solid consensus. Is there any room for Tennessee to move up (or down)?

Here are what I believe to be fairly safe assumptions:

• Virginia and Villanova are No. 1 seeds no matter what they do in their conference tournaments.
• Xavier, Kansas, and Duke are fighting it out for the other two No. 1 seeds, but none of these teams are falling below the Vols.
• The No. 4 seeds in the Bracket Matrix – Texas Tech, Wichita State, West Virginia, and Clemson – aren’t passing Tennessee without winning their conference tournaments.

The Vols can obviously help their own cause by winning their conference tournament; we’ll get to that later this week. But between now and then, a few targets above Tennessee in the matrix are in action in their respective tournaments. What losses would be meaningful to Tennessee’s chances?

Also on the table: trips to Nashville in weekend one and, potentially, Atlanta in weekend two. On this front, Tennessee’s neighbors on the three line are the biggest teams to watch. If seeded higher than Tennessee overall, Auburn and/or Cincinnati could secure an opening weekend in Nashville. This is why you’re seeing the Vols in Dallas in a lot of brackets today. The working assumption is Virginia and Duke will go to Charlotte, leaving North Carolina and a player to be named later in Nashville. Michigan or Michigan State (remember, the Big Ten is already done) could also slide in there depending on how things shake out. The Vols will need a good showing and some help to stay in-state.

What would that help look like? Here are games relevant to Tennessee’s chances to go to Nashville and move up the bracket this week:

WEDNESDAY

• ACC Quarterfinals: North Carolina vs Syracuse – 9:00 PM – ESPN2

The Tar Heels did beat Tennessee and are currently a No. 2 in the matrix. But UNC also has nine losses, and will have 10 unless they win the ACC Tournament. No team has earned a No. 2 seed with 10 losses in the expansion era; Wikipedia’s detailed records go back to 1995, and I couldn’t find any there either. Carolina’s name brand will certainly count for something, but will the committee put them on the two line and/or ahead of the Vols if they make an early exit in Brooklyn? If the Tar Heels win here, they’ll face Miami at 9:00 PM on Thursday.

FRIDAY

• American Quarterfinals: Cincinnati vs UConn/SMU – 12:00 PM – ESPN2
• SEC Quarterfinals: Auburn vs Texas A&M/Alabama – 1:00 PM – ESPN

Chances aren’t great for Cincinnati getting upset: SMU is 87th in KenPom, UConn a lowly 174th. The Bearcats beat both of them by 25 the last time they saw them. But Auburn? Two of the five teams to beat the Tigers this year are Alabama and Texas A&M. If Auburn is bounced early and the Vols go deep into the weekend, Tennessee should at least move up the ladder for Nashville.

 

 

I was 16 rows back in the upper deck yesterday. It’s the farthest from the action I’ve ever been for anything at Thompson-Boling, which was packed seat for seat in all directions for several rows beyond that. The arena’s capacity is sometimes thought of as a weakness. But when it actually meets capacity, especially without any Kentucky fans, it can rock and sway in a manner that lives up to the blood it shares with Neyland.

For a long time yesterday, the arena was just angry. The officiating wasn’t kind, and neither were we. And neither was Georgia: for a team ranking 324th in three-point shooting, they certainly love playing Tennessee. The Dawgs went 6-of-14 from the arc in Athens, bolstering them to an 11-point win. In our game preview I said I’d like to see them do that again. No problem: Georgia hit seven of their first eleven threes in Knoxville.

The officiating and the hot shooting screamed, “This just isn’t our day.” And hey, sometimes in basketball it’s not. Many of Georgia’s first half buckets were well defended and/or shots we wanted them to take. Credit the Dawgs for knocking them down.

When Tennessee got it going, they did so with a lot of the same stuff that’s brought them this far. The Vols stayed committed on the defensive end, and Georgia’s 42 first half points turned into just 19 in the second. The Dawgs didn’t score in the last three minutes, turning it over three times in that span. Meanwhile Tennessee continued to play with purpose on offense. Grant Williams had 22 points in 27 minutes, and Admiral Schofield had 23.

PB&J had 15 of Tennessee’s 21 made shots. Five of the other six were threes from Jordan Bone and Lamonte Turner. And the Vols had 15 assists (a 71.4% assist percentage) and four turnovers. That’s Tennessee’s best basketball: create opportunities for Williams and Schofield, knock down enough threes to keep them honest, and defend your butt off.

And then, when Grant Williams fouled out on one of the most ridiculous calls I’ve ever seen with the Vols down one, Rick Barnes stepped to the microphone. He was addressing whoever threw something onto the floor, but he led with something for everyone: “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Plenty of time without Grant Williams? Plenty of time when Yante Maten followed up with a three?

Yep.

Even with their best player on the bench, Tennessee’s defense still shined. And it turns out you’re still pretty good when Admiral Schofield is your best player on the floor.

In the end, Tennessee got the rings, the banner, and the scissors. Your season ends quickly in college basketball. 67 teams will make the NCAA Tournament only to lose there. You celebrate making the Sweet 16, but as we found out in 2010, you can ride plenty of emotions there too. One of Tennessee’s greatest wins and most heartbreaking losses came 48 hours apart those eight years ago. It’s the nature of the beast in postseason play.

And so, unless you’re a fan of one of seven or eight schools that regularly go to the Final Four, you cling to and celebrate the tangible things in college basketball when you get them. And while it would be great for the Vols to win their first SEC Tournament since 1979, the regular season title – earned over two grueling months instead of one quick weekend – is by far the greater accomplishment.

We may run into a game early in St. Louis and/or the NCAA Tournament where it once again just isn’t our night. It happens, and if it happens to us it’ll be disappointing. But this team now has something that can’t be swept away in such a loss. This program has secured the lasting memory that’s escaped football and men’s and women’s basketball for 8-10 years. They did it from 13th in the media poll, and they finished it with the toughness we’ve come to expect.

And they did it at home, in a game with clearer stakes and higher drama than most I’ve seen in that building. The Vols simply don’t have an opportunity to win a league with Kentucky and, recently, Florida very often, and especially not at home on the last day of the regular season. But this time they did, and despite Georgia’s best efforts, they made a memory.

On that note:

My favorite games at Thompson-Boling:

1. 2006: Tennessee 80 #2 Florida 76 – In Pearl’s first year, the win at Texas got everyone talking, and got them to show up for this game in early January. You ever think something is probably too good to be true but show up anyway just in case? That was this game. The late save by Dane Bradshaw announced Tennessee’s arrival on the national stage, and they wouldn’t leave it for the next six years.
2. 2010: #16 Tennessee 76 #1 Kansas 68 – I feel like enough time has passed here that we have to remind everyone that this was the suspended version of the Elite Eight Vols, playing their second game without four players. Chism, Maze, Prince, and Hopson beat Kansas, but not without Woolridge, Kenny Hall, and McB43.
3. 1999: Tennessee 68 #13 Kentucky 61 – The closest comparison to yesterday, the Vols hosted UK on the last day of the regular season and beat them at TBA for the first time in six years, clinching the SEC East. The first time I saw us beat Kentucky.
4. 2010: #19 Tennessee 74 #2 Kentucky 65 – The Wall/Cousins Kentucky squad had lost only once when they came into Knoxville, the first visit from Calipari as the coach in Lexington. This too is about degree of difficulty; same with the 06-07 Gators, I remember watching these guys in warmups and thinking about how perfectly we’d have to play to win. And we did.
5. 2007: Tennessee 86 #5 Florida 76 – The Pat Summitt cheerleader game, featuring one of the best teams the Vols have ever played against…and the Vols led by as many as 27 points. This just felt like everything Tennessee was supposed to be with Fulmer, Summitt, and Peyton Manning in attendance just weeks after his first Super Bowl. It’s a moment frozen in time for the athletic department a decade later.
6. 2018: #16 Tennessee 66 Georgia 61 – This is where I’d put yesterday, though I’d agree with the notion that the Schofield dunk was one of the loudest moments in TBA history. I think the 2006 Florida game was slightly louder (and had a few thousand more voices in attendance), but not by much.
7. 2000: #11 Tennessee 105 #7 Auburn 76 – The Tigers were on the preseason cover of Sports Illustrated, but got obliterated in Knoxville in Ron Slay’s freshman coming out party. My freshman year at UT.
8. 2013: Tennessee 88 #25 Kentucky 58 – A 30-point beat down of Kentucky is still the most surreal game on this list.
9. 2000: #8 Tennessee 76 #12 Florida 73 (OT) – A student section favorite, the Vols beat Florida in double overtime in Gainesville, then won in overtime in Knoxville with Tony Harris injured (but healthy enough to come off the bench in a fight). These Vols would earn a share of the SEC title; these Gators would make the Final Four. I don’t think I loved to hate any team more than the Dupay-Bonner-Haslem-Miller Gators during my time at UT.
10. 2016: Tennessee 84 #20 Kentucky 77 – Down 21 in the first half, Barnes’ first team rallied for a signature win over the Wildcats.

December home games aren’t kind for clergy, so I wasn’t there for Lofton-over-Durant or his takedown of Memphis the week before, as well as some near misses like the UNC game this year. This is just my list. What’s yours, and where did yesterday rank if you were there?

The Vols play for an SEC Championship at 6:00 PM ET tonight, but a handful of other games could impact Tennessee’s fate in the bracket. We’ll all be watching Auburn host South Carolina (3:30 PM, SEC Network), which will in part determine whether the Vols are the one or the two seed in the SEC Tournament. But in the big picture, Tennessee is currently a three seed in the Bracket Matrix, and the same clear lines from Friday are still in place:

• Virginia and Villanova are unanimous one seeds in the matrix, with Kansas and Xavier a one seed in 95% of entries. Even if the Vols win today and win the SEC Tournament, I don’t think we’re climbing this high.
• Duke, North Carolina, Purdue, and Michigan State are the two seeds in the matrix, all with an average seeding between 2.00-2.22. Duke and UNC play tonight, Purdue and Michigan State could play tomorrow in the Big Ten Tournament finals. Could those losses and a strong Tennessee finish get the Vols on this line?
• Auburn, Cincinnati, and Tennessee are the first three #3 seeds in the matrix, all with an average seeding between 2.76-2.97. The Vols are a two seed in 10 of 93 entries in the matrix this morning.
• Then there’s a break. Wichita State is currently the last three seed, but their average seeding is 3.66. West Virginia, Clemson, and Texas Tech are the first four #4 seeds, all with an average between 3.86-3.99, with another break after that for Ohio State (who lost yesterday).

My assumption is the one seeds can’t be caught, and I don’t know if any of the twos will be either. But if you’re looking for something to watch with interest, losses for those just ahead of and behind the Vols in the matrix is a good place to start. Most of those teams are in action today, plus a crucial Cincinnati/Wichita State match-up tomorrow.

#20 West Virginia at Texas – 12:00 PM – ESPN

Rick Barnes’ past is the last team in the matrix field, but could help themselves and the Vols today.

#23 Kentucky at Florida – 12:00 PM – CBS

The winner here is guaranteed a double-bye in the SEC Tournament, and could be Tennessee’s Saturday opponent in the SEC Tournament.

#2 Michigan State vs #15 Michigan – 2:00 PM – CBS (Big Ten Tournament Semifinals)

The strength of the Big Ten hurts Michigan State, but they are 29-3 and carry plenty of name recognition, so I’m not sure they’ll be caught on the two line.

TCU at #12 Texas Tech – 4:00 PM – ESPN2

The opposite is true for Texas Tech, playing for a second place finish in the nation’s best conference.

#8 Purdue vs Penn State – 4:30 PM – CBS (Big Ten Tournament Semifinals)

Purdue is still Tennessee’s best win of the season, so I don’t know if them losing here really helps or hurts the Vols.

#9 North Carolina at #5 Duke – 8:15 PM – ESPN

Carolina helps our strength of schedule, so an easy call here.

It’s a dangerous thing to allow yourself a moment before the moment. Let’s take the risk.

Postseason play of any kind would’ve been progress for Tennessee this year; perhaps flirting with the bubble last season made the big dance the only definition of success. When Tennessee beat Purdue and followed up by not losing any games it shouldn’t have lost, making the bracket became a reasonable expectation. Then it was a favorable seed in the first round. Then it was maybe a four or five.

Tennessee just kept winning. They keep winning. We’ve been using stats like, “The Vols have won 13 of their last 16,” which is amazing. But we’ve also reached the point when the whole body of work is amazing, no matter what happens from here.

In fact, Tennessee has won so much, that sentence probably isn’t true. Because now the Vols are in line to be a two or three seed, the sort of number that carries the expectation of the tournament’s second weekend. Tennessee is 22-7 (12-5), numbers we haven’t seen in eight years.

We haven’t seen anything that lasts in these eight years. Not in football, where a few weeks of joy in 2016 were swept away by the second half of the season. Not in basketball, where Bruce Pearl was out the door a year after making the Elite Eight those eight years ago, and Cuonzo Martin was already on the way out the door when we came close to doing it again in 2014.

Football’s most recent, meaningful, lasting memory is a blocked field goal in overtime at Kentucky in 2007, basketball’s a blocked shot against Ohio State in 2010. Those are the highlights for Tennessee’s athletic department. And now, after the most tumultuous football season in the history of the department, basketball has done far more than right the ship. Basketball is making new memories, built to last. Basketball is getting ready to sell DVDs, or whatever they put season highlight films on these days.

And basketball can cut down the nets at Thompson-Boling tomorrow night.

What else is left to play for:

Lines are getting clear in the Bracket Matrix. In Thursday afternoon’s update, Virginia and Villanova were one seeds in all 70 entries, Kansas in 65, Xavier in 63. Duke, Purdue, Michigan State, and North Carolina are the two seeds, each with an average seeding in the matrix between 2.00-2.16. Then Auburn, Cincinnati, and Tennessee lead off the three line with an average seeding of 2.76-2.97. West Virginia is currently just ahead of Wichita State for the last three seed, but the Mountaineers are at 3.81.

So the consensus is these are the four one seeds, those are the four two seeds, and the Vols, Auburn, and Cincinnati are definitely next. Can anything change between now and Selection Sunday? If nothing else, Tennessee and Auburn might be competing for both the SEC title and a spot in the Atlanta region, almost certainly with Virginia (and thus not with Duke or North Carolina as the two seed in their bracket). Or maybe the committee has something else in mind. But if the matrix is a good guide, Tennessee is fairly stable on the three line.

But an SEC Championship wouldn’t hurt.

To beat Georgia:

If Tennessee’s best game was last time out at Mississippi State, its worst came in Athens two weeks ago. Grant Williams went 1-for-8 and had just five points, the Vols couldn’t make up the difference from the arc, and Derek Ogbeide was the hero off the Georgia bench with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Tennessee missed a chance to take the lead with six minutes to play and never got another one, ultimately falling by 11.

Georgia’s NCAA Tournament chances were still alive after that win, but two losses in the last three have done them in. It may have also done Mark Fox in. Both teams will be in unique emotional states tomorrow.

In the “I’d like to see them do that twice” department, Georgia shot 6-of-14 from the arc in the first meeting but is 324th nationally in three-point shooting on the year. The Vols had tremendous success encouraging Mississippi State to shoot threes; Georgia would rather go through Yante Maten as opposed to MSU’s guards, but the goal for Tennessee’s defense should be the same: take your chances with their outside shooting. Doing so should also help keep the Dawgs off the offensive glass this time.

Georgia is 29th in defensive efficiency; this is still an NIT-bound, capable basketball team. I doubt anything will come easily for the Vols in this game. But in front of a sold-out crowd with the title on the line, I doubt anything will come easily for Georgia either.

It’s been an incredible season, and its most meaningful moments are yet to come. This team is allowed to dream big. You get four chances to cut down nets: one for the conference title, one for the conference tournament, one for the Final Four, and one for the national championship. The Vols have never climbed those last two ladders, haven’t won the SEC Tournament since 1979, and haven’t cut down any nets since winning the conference title in 2008.

So much has changed in a short time under Rick Barnes. Tomorrow we can get something tangible to show for it.

6:00 PM, SEC Network. Let’s keep making memories.

Go Vols.

We’ve been Mississippi State.

For all three of Cuonzo Martin’s years and the final season under Bruce Pearl, the Vols came to the last week of the regular season on the bubble. There were some games like this one, when a tournament-bound team came into Knoxville, one last opportunity for the home team. Sometimes we won. Sometimes we lost.

It’s been a long time – eight years – since the Vols were the alpha in this scenario. We’ve been more accustomed to the hunger and desperation of the team in pursuit. All that makes it a tough ask for the alpha, on the road on a night like tonight. And the Bulldogs looked the part early, leading 25-17 in the first half.

For all of those reasons, this might have been Tennessee’s best win of the season. And there is no better time than the soon-to-be-March present for that.

Mississippi State was 27th in KenPom’s defensive efficiency ratings coming into this game. Tennessee carved them up for 56.3% from the floor.

The Bulldogs put two 6’10″+ guys on the floor and made it difficult for Tennessee to play through Grant Williams from the opening tip. No problem: for the second game in a row, Admiral Schofield took over. After a career-high 25 at Ole Miss on Saturday, Schofield added 24 tonight on 9-of-18 from the floor. And Tennessee was intentional: no other player took more than eight shots, Grant Williams had only three shots, and the Vols didn’t settle for threes, finishing just 4-of-11 from the arc.

And they torched the Bulldogs, at one point making 11 consecutive field goals in the second half. That’s hard to do in warm-ups.

Meanwhile Tennessee’s defense helped break open a six-point halftime lead by holding the Bulldogs to just two field goals in the first eight minutes of the second half. Quinndary Weatherspoon had 17 points, but got no consistent help. The Bulldogs went 4-of-20 from the arc, missed six free throws, and finished at just 39.2% from the field. A team with only one home loss on the year was dismantled on its own floor in the second half.

And look, I think Mississippi State is good. I just don’t think they’ve played a team like Tennessee in Starkville.

Tennessee’s best result is still their victory over Purdue. Sweeping Kentucky is historic, and the win at Rupp three weeks ago will be remembered for a long time. But there was a quiet fear in its aftermath, quickly replacing whispers of a one seed: had the Vols peaked?

Tennessee left Lexington and lost in Tuscaloosa by 28, narrowly escaped South Carolina, then lost at Georgia. They gutted out a win against Florida, then went from up 20 to up four to up 21 to winning by eight at Ole Miss. There were some nice moments in there, but nothing that made you feel as confident as we did walking out of Rupp.

Tonight, on the road with everything on the line for Mississippi State, I think the Vols played their best game of the year. They won by 22, locked up at least the two seed in the SEC and stayed alive to win the league. They kept themselves in the conversation for a two or three seed in the NCAA Tournament. And, most importantly in the last week of the regular season, they proved their best basketball is on the floor right now and not behind them. This is a very, very, very good sign.

Go Vols.

Five of Tennessee’s first six conference games were against what should be NCAA Tournament teams. We thought there would be only two others after that, three if Alabama got its act together. But here, in the final week of the regular season, the league has one more surprise in store.

Mississippi State played a bunch of nobodies in an 8-0 start, then went to Cincinnati and lost by 15. A 2-5 start in league play made them an afterthought; they could still aspire to the program’s first NIT appearance since 2012.

But then came four wins in a row, including home victories over Missouri and Alabama. They lost the return trip to CoMo in overtime, then lost by one at Vanderbilt. But they’ve since won three straight, including a huge 12-point win at Texas A&M and an overtime victory against South Carolina. Now the Bulldogs are 21-8 (9-7), 50th in KenPom and 62nd in RPI. This is very much a bubble team, which means this is very much a game the Bulldogs need.

What Mississippi State does well:

• Defensive Efficiency: MSU is 28th in KenPom’s defensive ratings, 35th in effective field goal percentage allowed. They’ve been good at this all year.
• Getting hot at the right time: Five of MSU’s six highest-scoring games in league play have been in February. They actually lost scoring 80+ against Missouri (in overtime) and Vanderbilt, then put 79 on Ole Miss and 93 on Texas A&M on the road. They’re balanced at their best: Quinndary Weatherspoon scores 14.7 per game and brother Nick adds 11.1, but increased production from Tyson Carter and Abdul Ado has fueled their most recent run.
• Shot blocking: Ado is 6’11” and 55th nationally in block percentage, and 6’10” Aric Holman is 73rd in the same stat. MSU sometimes puts both on the floor at the same time, which could create difficult match-ups and opportunities for Tennessee on the block.

What Tennessee can do to win:

• Encourage MSU to shoot threes: The Bulldogs have hit better than 40% from the arc just five times this year. Mississippi State shoots 31.2% from the arc on the year (333rd of 351 nationally) and 30.8% in conference play (13th).
• Don’t be afraid to defend aggressively: The Bulldogs also suffer at the charity stripe, 68.6% on the year (277th) and 69.9% in conference play (10th). They’re not particularly good at getting to the line either. I don’t think it’s in Tennessee’s best interests to do anything to encourage Grant Williams to foul more often, but the rest of the lineup? Might be a good night to get up in their face.
• Take especially good care of the basketball: The Bulldogs force a steal on 9.8% of opponent possessions, 84th nationally. And they’re just as good at not turning it over themselves, which means possessions will be especially valuable. Mississippi State is 14-2 when forcing 13+ turnovers, but just 7-6 when forcing 12 or less.

The Bulldogs have lost just once at home this season, to Auburn on January 13. South Carolina just took them to overtime and Alabama lost by just four earlier this month. They also have not faced Kentucky, Florida, or Texas A&M in Starkville. Will the Bulldogs play their way onto the right side of the bubble? Or will Tennessee stay in the race for the SEC title and firm up its chances for a two or three seed?

Early game woo! 7:00 PM ET, SEC Network.

The Vols came out firing in Oxford, building a 16-4 lead in the first six minutes behind four three-pointers. The lead swelled to 29-9, and was still 15 points at halftime.

But the first three minutes of the second half were unkind to Tennessee…or, more appropriately, Tennessee wasn’t kind to itself. Four turnovers in those first three minutes sparked an 11-0 Rebel run, cutting the lead to four.

Tennessee’s defense righted the ship, holding the Rebels scoreless for the next four minutes while the Vols built the lead back to nine. UT would eventually push it to 21, was still up 14 with two minutes to play, and won by eight. The Vols led by double digits for almost 30 minutes. There were only a few truly uncomfortable moments.

What can Tennessee learn from those moments? I think sometimes the offense seems to get stuck in the space between feeding the ball and forcing the ball to Grant Williams. Tennessee’s best basketball plays through #2, and at times the Vols can get him the ball cleanly and let him do his thing (as was the case against Florida). At other times defenses swarm and deny him the ball, and the Vols can clearly fall back on good looks this creates. But when the defense doesn’t show its hand, occasionally the Vols learn the hard way not to force the issue. Many of Tennessee’s turnovers come from ill-advised passes into the post.

The Vols adjusted; again, credit the defense first for stopping the bleeding before the offense got its footing. And credit Admiral Schofield, who gets much of his offense outside the go inside to Grant/kick it out for three routine. Today he had a career-high 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting, along with seven rebounds. While Williams struggled with just six points on the day, Schofield proved the Vols can still win comfortably. Tennessee also got big minutes from Derrick Walker coming back from an ankle injury; he finished with five points and seven rebounds. Walker got some of Kyle Alexander’s duties today, posting up in similar fashion to Williams and executing well.

Ole Miss helped by shooting 1-of-23 from the arc. But despite their struggles early in the second half, Tennessee still finished with 20 assists on 25 made baskets, the fifth time this season the Vols had an assist percentage of 80% or better (and the second time against the Rebels).

The Vols go to 21-7 (11-5), and could lock up a double bye in the SEC Tournament by the end of the day. It’s the best regular season win total since 2010, and they can tie that Elite Eight squad at 23-7 with a pair of wins next week.

Go Vols.

The things we’ve spent all year hoping were true for the SEC are about to be fully realized.

The league record for NCAA Tournament teams is six. Eight are in the most recent Bracket Matrix, and Mississippi State refuses to remove themselves from the conversation to make nine. And it shouldn’t be eight or nine sweating it out: seven of the eight teams currently in the matrix field are a top eight seed.

We began to see this last year, when the four of the league’s five tournament teams were top eight seeds. That hadn’t happened since 2007. This year, if a handful of teams stay on the right side of an 8/9 match-up, we could see twice that many be the higher seed in the first round.

The conversation sometimes drifts to, “Yeah, but there’s no elite team.” I think this is in part because the SEC’s version of elite has been a championship-caliber Kentucky or Florida team for the last decade. The last non-UK/UF team from this league to pull off a one or two seed in the NCAA Tournament was Tennessee 10 years ago. Bruce Pearl might get there again this season. And only Texas A&M two years ago has earned a three seed outside of Kentucky and Florida in this decade. The Vols still have every opportunity to join that list this season.

So no, Auburn and Tennessee won’t be confused for the best of John Calipari and Billy Donovan heading into the tournament. But what the Vols and Tigers are doing is still better than what any other SEC program has done in the last ten years. And they’re doing it in a far deeper league.

Here’s a look at the post-expansion SEC the last six years. (Note: if the formatting is weird on your phone, try viewing it in landscape.)

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
NCAA Teams	3	3	5	3	5	8*
Top 8 Seeds	1	2	2	2	4	7*
KenPom Top 25	2	3	1	3	3	3
KenPom Top 50	3	4	7	4	5	9
KenPom Top 100	9	9	11	11	12	14

(* – projected bids from the Bracket Matrix)

When Missouri and Texas A&M joined the league in 2012-13, the SEC was at its lowest point of this century. But thanks to changes in coaching and scheduling, now in 2018 the league is at its highest point of this century.

Along with an almost-certain record for tournament bids, the basement and the middle are both significantly stronger. In 2013 it wasn’t just five teams outside the KenPom Top 100; three of them were between 197-256. Even last year, truly terrible seasons from Missouri (156 in KenPom) and LSU (172) saw both teams go 2-16 in league play. Two coaching changes later and every team in the league has at least five conference wins with three games to play.

And now the crowd is in the middle. Behind Auburn and Tennessee are six teams at 8-7 in league play, plus LSU at 7-8, plus Texas A&M at 6-9 but almost certainly still headed for the dance floor. Teams like Georgia and South Carolina should find their way to the NIT. And, for the first time, all 14 teams are in the Top 100 in KenPom.

There are still three games left, plenty of time for positioning in such a crowded field. But Tennessee has already earned tremendous praise for getting this far in such a deep league. Earning a double bye in the SEC Tournament is a significant accomplishment. The Vols and the league have much to be proud of.

 

It may not have been the most aesthetically pleasing win of the year, but Tennessee’s 62-57 victory over Florida provided validation on two important points.

One: the Vols handled Florida’s elite guards. The Gators shot 35% from the floor, and 57 points is their second-lowest total on the year. Chiozza finished with a flurry for 11 points and 9 assists, but Koulechov was 3-for-10 and KeVaughn Allen went 0-for-3. It came at the expense of 13 offensive rebounds, but Tennessee relentlessly ran at Florida on the arc, and the Gators hit just 6-of-24.

Teams with great guards have gotten the best of Tennessee several times this season. But tonight, the Vols defended really well for most of the game, and made sure Florida’s penetration didn’t get the best of them. Bone, Turner, and Daniel combined for just 14 points (22.5% of the total, which is still in the sweet spot). But they did a good job defending against solid competition, which bodes well for this team in March.

And the rest of the offense was more than covered by tonight’s second point of validation.

Two: Grant Williams is still a bad man. Coming off his worst game of the season at Georgia, Williams ate Florida’s guard-heavy lineup alive. Despite being burdened with foul trouble, Williams was 8-of-13 from the floor and 7-of-8 at the line for 23 points, along with six rebounds.

The Vols were up 10 with five minutes to play, but Florida kept attacking. Williams responded with Tennessee’s next seven points, keeping the Vols up multiple possessions. And particularly tonight, it didn’t seem to matter where he caught the ball on the floor. He just went right at an undersized defense that had no answers. The most important question when we get to March, especially with increased confidence in Tennessee’s backcourt defense, is what kind of match-ups will Williams see in the bracket. The Vols are good enough to win even when facing teams that do have some kind of answer for him. But Williams is good enough to just take over if teams don’t.

Auburn just keeps winning, but the Vols are now two games up on the six teams tied for third place. A couple of those somebodies are going to play on Thursday in the SEC Tournament. Tennessee is really close to making sure it won’t be them.

This win restored confidence in what the Vols are doing and in their best player, and bolstered it in response to their greatest weakness. Tennessee can shoot threes better than they did tonight, but this win is another reminder that they can do just that even when those shots aren’t falling. And it adds to a resume that should keep the Vols among the top four seeds in both the SEC and the Bracket Matrix with three regular season games to play.

Go Vols. Well done.

We get as much mileage as we can out of the “picked to finish 13th in the SEC” narrative, but that story really changed as soon as the Vols beat Purdue. That was 91 days ago. Tennessee then increased its tournament profile in the most boring way possible: competitive losses to Villanova and North Carolina, wins over everyone else in the non-conference. It looks like that will now include one additional victory over a tournament team (NC State), but at the time there was no additional earth-shattering moment after Purdue. The Vols beat all the teams they should beat, and almost beat two teams better than them.

But after a brief set of questions following near misses with Arkansas and Auburn to open SEC play, the Vols provided answers almost every night. Tennessee won nine of its next ten games in what might be the deepest SEC of all-time, beating Texas A&M and sweeping Kentucky. They won four road games, losing only at Missouri by four. It was, and is, the sort of streak that creates an expectation and then lives up to it.

Meanwhile, Auburn did basically the same thing, which kept the SEC title just out of reach. Tennessee’s RPI has hovered between 10-20 for six weeks. Even though it seems strange to say with that whole picked-13th past, Tennessee has been this good for a while now.

So good for so long, in fact, we flirted with one-seed talk the same week we won at Rupp Arena. Did the Vols fly a little too close to the sun? We’ll find out in March. But a 28-point loss at Alabama and what should be the season’s first loss to a non-tournament team at Georgia both backed the Vols down the bracket, and raised questions for the first time in almost two months. (By the way, the #nobadlosses still holds up – Georgia wasn’t a “good loss”, but the Dawgs are 66th in RPI in 70th in KenPom. That’s an NIT team.)

A team with Tennessee’s profile – consistent all year but an elite win or two shy from longer one-seed conversations – feels like a baseball team seven games up in the wild card in early August. There’s still work to do, and it sucks you can’t win the division, but this team is going to the playoffs with every chance to advance. That’s the end result, and you know it a few miles away from the bracket. A team like that can get lost in the grind for a minute.

Is that what’s happened to Tennessee these last few days, or are there legitimate concerns? Here with some answers are the Florida Gators.

Florida runs a particularly efficient offense: shoot threes, make free throws, don’t turn it over. Virginia Tech transfer Jalen Hudson and Rice transfer Egor Koulechov joined Chris Chiozza and KeVaughn Allen in this guard-heavy lineup, and these dudes will let it fly. The Gators are fourth in the SEC in threes attempted and 70th nationally in three-point percentage; Hudson shoots 39.5% and Koulechov 42%. They shoot 73.8% from the line, and most of all, they take great care of the basketball. Florida is fourth nationally in turnover percentage, giving the ball away on just 14.3% of its possessions.

Florida has also been a tad unlucky, especially when it comes to opponent free throw shooting. They lost to Duke by three when the Blue Devils went 19-of-20 at the line, and at Vanderbilt by three when the Commodores went 22-of-24. Ole Miss, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida State all beat the Gators while shooting better than 81% at the line.

Much of Tennessee’s focus right now is on offensive production and rebounding, but Tennessee’s most consistent weakness has been stopping great guards. Florida provides another opportunity for Rick Barnes’s squad to show their work.

On the other side of this one is a road trip through the state of Mississippi and another shot at Georgia in Knoxville. It’s the last test against a tournament team before the SEC Tournament, and will either cast our vision back toward the bracket with a win, or deeper into what makes this team tick with a loss.

9:00 PM ET, but hey, we made it to ESPN2! Have I mentioned we still have the television schedule of a team picked to finish 13th?

Go Vols.