On January 15, Kentucky shot 67.9% from the floor in a 107-79 win over Tennessee. The Vols dropped to 11-5 (2-3), vanquished in three straight road tests as league play opened in Tuscaloosa, Baton Rouge, and Lexington.
Since then, Tennessee is 7-1, the lone loss by one point at Texas. Tonight’s 73-64 win over Vanderbilt moves the Vols to 18-6 (9-3), third place in the SEC and three games clear of the double bye.
In the aftermath of the loss in Lexington, we looked at how often Tennessee teams peak early, late, or are simply a product of their schedule. Now 80% of the way through the regular season, I’m not sure any Tennessee team has more accurately reflected the competition they’ve faced. The Vols lost to Villanova by 18, then beat North Carolina by 17 the next day. They lost to Texas Tech in overtime and at Texas at the buzzer. They have zero bad losses: each of their six defeats are to foes in the KenPom Top 20. And all of them are away from Knoxville, where the Vols are undefeated. Inside Thompson-Boling, the Vols have a pair of Quad 1 wins over LSU and Arizona.
The Vols are who the schedule says they are. And the schedule saved the best for last.
Kentucky was a Top 10 KenPom team when they routed the Big Orange. Then they were a top five team. Now, they’re decimal points away from being the best team in the country not named Gonzaga.
The Cats lost short-handed at Auburn on January 22. Since then, they won at Kansas by 18 and at Alabama by 11. They project as a one seed in Bart Torvik’s predictive bracketology.
John Calipari has been in Lexington 13 seasons now. His 2012 national champions finished with a 32.59 rating in KenPom. His 38-1 2015 squad finished at 36.91. Those two are the cream of his crop.
The current squad is next on the list (29.36).
That’s better than the 2019 squad we vanquished twice (27.57), better than the John Wall/DeMarcus Cousins group from 2010 (26.54).
Heading into the first meeting, this felt like a good Kentucky team with a great college basketball player in Oscar Tshiebwe. Now, this feels like a great Kentucky team.
Is this a great Tennessee team?
That answer might come slowly. But using the same metric, in KenPom this is still Tennessee’s second-best team of the last 20 years. The 2019 squad ended at 26.24. The current squad is at 24.11.
If they are who the schedule says they are, what will they do in these last six games? They’ll finally see the league’s two worst teams, albeit on the road, with Missouri and Georgia. They’ll play Arkansas twice in the last five games. And they’ll host two potential one seeds with Kentucky and Auburn.
The Vols are already good, already tracking a top four seed in the NCAA Tournament. Are they good enough to beat Kentucky or Auburn?
One thing to remember, long ago though it seems: the other team in the conversation as the best non-Gonzaga squad in the land, at least in KenPom?
Arizona.
This season may feel predictable in a good way, and we should feel good about the Vols. But if we’re wondering if we can feel great about them? No matter what you think of the metrics, if Tennessee beats Kentucky on Tuesday night? They would join Alabama with two of the best wins in college basketball this year…with, of course, none of the bad losses.
The foundation is solid. Now, for the ceiling.
Go Vols.