Men’s basketball SEC Power Rankings Feb. 5: Vols remain among elites

The Tennessee Volunteers remain among the most elite teams in our men’s basketball SEC Power Rankings for Monday, Feb. 5, 2018.

They won two easy games this past week. So, predictably, not much was going to change for Tennessee basketball in our SEC Power Rankings for this week. However, that was not the case for so many other teams.

In fact, we had a major shift in so many other ways. A resurgence by a few teams and a series of upsets have now burst the conference wide open. We already knew it was deep, but it looks deeper than ever.

Okay, with one exception, there’s not a lot of power at the top. But there are a lot of good teams after that one exception, and all have a chance to make the NCAA Tournament.

Don’t believe me? All but one team are ranked No. 82 or higher than the RPI. That means they are all at the very least on the bubble.

The conference has 10 teams in the Top 60 of the RPI, all of whom would stake a claim to deserving a spot in the Big Dance if the season ended today. Eight are in the Top 50, and six are in the Top 40. Simply put, it’s a complete cluster that make these SEC Power Rankings incredibly difficult.

On top of that, with the exception of the two teams at the top and the one at the bottom, every team is within two conference wins of each other. That makes this conference wide open, and it’s beyond incredible.

So taking all that into account, it’s time to bring you our breakdown of how we sorted out these teams. Here is a look at our SEC Power Rankings for the first full week of February in the 2017-2018 men’s college basketball season.