Tennessee basketball: Scenarios for Vols to win SEC regular season title

4. Vols lose two games but beat Kentucky

If Tennessee basketball loses two games in any way, the road to an outright SEC Championship is still there. But it is much more difficult, and they will need numerous breaks to go their way. The Vols would finish 14-4 and 26-5 overall. And to make things much easier, one of their losses can’t be to Kentucky.

This is conceivable, by the way. Should they beat Kentucky and the Mississippi State Bulldogs at home, you could see them losing both road games to the Ole Miss Rebels and Auburn Tigers. Here is the unlikely scenario but one that is very feasible still for the Vols to capture that title outright.

– LSU loses three games

Simply put, if the Vols lose two games, they need LSU to lose three games. Given their injuries, we’ve already mentioned that they are likely to be underdogs anyway against both the Alabama Crimson Tide and Florida Gators on the road. Florida already beat them.

But their first match-up is against the Texas A&M Aggies this week at home. That’s still a potential loss since they are injured, and every fan on Rocky Top should be rooting hard for A&M to somehow pull off that upset. If they do, it opens up a world of possibilities.

– Kentucky loses two games outside of the Vols

If Kentucky loses to the Vols and one other game while the Vols lose two games to close out the year, then the two would be tied in the SEC standings with four losses each and a split in head to head play. So they would need to lose two others for UT to pull ahead firmly.

We already mentioned that possibility in the previous slide with their final two games being at the Ole Miss Rebels and at home against the Florida Gators. But assuming they beat the Arkansas Razorbacks and then playing out this scenario, that would mean they lose their final three regular season games including UT. As a result, Vol Nation’s best chance is to hope for a Hogs upset this week.