None of us have any experience with a 22-1 (10-0) basketball team outside our imagination. But here’s what we didn’t imagine about life at 10-0: the Vols aren’t even close to locking up the SEC.
It’s one part having both dates with Kentucky in the final seven games of the regular season, and one part LSU. Those two play tonight (7:00 PM ET, ESPN) in Lexington, the winner going to 10-1, the loser 9-2. It’s also a great lead-in to Duke at Louisville (9:00 PM), which could dramatically improve Tennessee’s chance at the number one overall seed if the Cardinals can join Gonzaga as teams who beat Duke but lost to the Vols.
Here’s life in the ACC: five teams between 8-3 and 9-1, six teams between 3-8 and 2-9. The gap is even more pronounced at the poles in the SEC: while Tennessee is 10-0 and the Cats & Tigers are 9-1, Missouri and Texas A&M are 2-8, Georgia 1-9, Vanderbilt 0-10. A&M’s one-point win over Alabama is the only victory from that four-team bottom tier that didn’t come against one of the other three.
So you can pencil in those four on Wednesday, and the Vols, Cats, Tigers, and a player to be named later for Friday in the SEC Tournament. Right now that fourth Friday team wouldn’t be one of the seven SEC schools in the Bracket Matrix, but Tennessee’s Wednesday opponent: South Carolina is 7-3 in the SEC, undefeated against everyone except, you guessed it: Tennessee, Kentucky, and LSU. The Vols turned a two-point game with 13 minutes left into a 22-point win without Jordan Bowden in Columbia despite 28 points from Chris Silva; I know we’re all looking to Saturday, but Carolina still deserves a glance.
The Vols can’t afford a stumble in the chase at the top of the bracket, but there’s also still a realistic scenario where Tennessee finishes third in the SEC. We’re absolutely trying to do more than win the league this year. But we also absolutely haven’t won the league enough – only thrice after 1982, including last year – to pretend it’s not a meaningful thing.
There’s plenty of excitement left to come in this week. But beating South Carolina is more than sidestepping a trap game; with Tennessee, LSU, and Kentucky all still in control of their own SEC destiny coming into tonight, every win counts.
