Tennessee basketball: Vols with a No.1 seed in latest bracketology update

The Tennessee basketball team is riding an 11-game winning streak and is playing like the best team in the land. A No.1 could be in the future for the Vols.

The Tennessee basketball team is coming off a dominating win over the Arkansas Razorbacks on Tuesday night. The Vols went on to score a season-high 106 points by shooting 52.6 percent from the field and an exceptional 61.1 percent from the three-point line.

The Vols are riding an 11-game winning streak that includes wins over Gonzaga, Memphis, and Florida. You have to go all the way back to November 23 to find their last loss which was at the hands of the Kansas Jayhawks in overtime. And, remember, Grant Williams fouled out of the game right before the overtime period.

However, the 15-1 overall record hasn’t been good enough for the AP voters to hand the Vols their first No.1 ranking since the 2007-08 season. But, in this week’s edition of our bracketology update ESPN, CBS Sports, and the Washington Post have Tennesse as the No.1 seed in the Midwest region.

We begin with ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s projections which were updated January 15, 2019. You can find the entire bracket projection here.

Tennessee is the No.1 seed from the Midwest region. The other three one seeds include Virginia (15-0), Duke (14-1), and Michigan (17-0). Rounding out the top four in the Vols bracket are Michigan State, North Carolina, and Buffalo.

Lunardi is projecting that a total of seven SEC teams (Ole Miss, Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Auburn, and Mississippi State) make the big dance this March.

CBS Sport’s Jerry Palm has updated his bracket from a year ago and had Tennessee as the No.1 seed in the Midwest as well. You can find his entire bracket here.

The only difference with the number one seeds is Palm has the Kansas Jayhawks in place of Duke. Rounding out the top four in the Midwest region are Duke, Houston, and Maryland.

The only SEC school Palm didn’t include in his projections that Lunardi did was Florida. Ole Miss was also shown some love in the CBS Sports projection receiving a four seed.

Like both ESPN and CBS Sports, the Washington Post has Tennessee as a No.1 seed along with the same SEC schools with the exception of Florida.

It’s clear that the majority of the “experts” have the Vols as a No.1 seed for the big dance. They are certainly playing like one of the best teams in the nation, so a high seed is more than justified at the moment.