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Tennessee basketball: Vols SEC schedule explains why they didn’t win title

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - FEBRUARY 19: Grant Williams #2 of the Tennessee Volunteers and Lamonte Turner #1 of the Tennessee Volunteers give a high five during the game between the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Tennessee Volunteers at Thompson-Boling Arena on February 19, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee won the game 58-46. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - FEBRUARY 19: Grant Williams #2 of the Tennessee Volunteers and Lamonte Turner #1 of the Tennessee Volunteers give a high five during the game between the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Tennessee Volunteers at Thompson-Boling Arena on February 19, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee won the game 58-46. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee basketball only got a No. 3 seed in the Men’s Southeastern Conference Tournament. But the Volunteers’ road schedule explains that.

With the regular season over, it’s safe to say that the SEC has a clear top tier, and that tier involves Tennessee basketball. The Vols join the Kentucky Wildcats and the LSU Tigers, and they are the top three seeds in the SEC Tournament.

LSU, at 26-5 overall, won the regular season title with a 16-2 record, getting the top seed. Kentucky is also 26-5 and edged out the Vols, who are 27-4, for the No. 2 seed despite both teams having a 15-3 conference record, losing to LSU and splitting their head to head match-ups.

However, when you break down the schedule, it’s easy to see how Tennessee basketball got the No. 3 seed. And quite honestly, coming so close to the No. 1 seed should give Vols fans big hopes for the SEC Tournament.

Remember, the Vols did not lose at home this year. All three of their SEC losses were on the road. By contrast, LSU did not lose a game on the road, and Kentucky only lost two games on the road. Each of them suffered at least one home loss.

But when you break down the road schedules, it’s clear why the Vols did not finish first in the league. The Vols are the only team among all three to have played every other team among the top four seeds in the SEC Tournament on the road. Not only did they face Kentucky and LSU on the road, but they also faced the South Carolina Gamecocks on the road.

Kentucky only faced Tennessee on the road, and LSU only faced Kentucky on the road. Meanwhile, Rick Barnes’s team faced two of the three top four seeds in the SEC Tournament twice, South Carolina and Kentucky. LSU, meanwhile, only faced South Carolina, and Kentucky only faced Tennessee.

Still, it’s fair to question that data. After all, South Carolina got a top four seed, but are they really better than the Ole Miss Rebels, Mississippi State Bulldogs or Auburn Tigers, all of whom have better overall records and could make the NCAA Tournament? Auburn had the same conference record as well but simply finished No. 5 due to a technical tiebreaker.

Fair enough. So let’s break down the whole conference. Tennessee basketball faced six of eight teams that finished at or above .500 in the SEC on the road. Kentucky only faced five, and LSU only faced four.

In fact, the overall winning percentage of the nine SEC teams that the Vols faced on the road was .589, and they had a total of 83 SEC wins. Kentucky came in significantly behind at .572 and 70, and LSU wasn’t much better at .570 and 73.

Simply put, by every stretch, the Vols had the toughest road schedule of the top tier teams in the SEC. And that explains why they, as a team that didn’t lose at home all year, got stuck with the No. 3 seed in the SEC Tournament.

Now, overall SEC schedule strength is a bit of a different story. Kentucky did face a tougher SEC schedule overall, as their SEC opponents combined for 156 wins. The Vols, though, weren’t far behind with 151 wins. It was LSU, who finished first in the league, with far and away the easiest overall conference schedule. Their opponents totaled 143 wins.

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Meanwhile, overall SEC opponents’ winning percentages were .590 for Kentucky, .562 for Tennessee and .551 for LSU. On that regard, you could make a case for the Wildcats having the toughest schedule.

Then you have overall strength of schedule outside of the conference. At that point, the Vols come in last, as their schedule strength is outside of the top 50 while LSU’s and Kentucky’s are in the top 20. But Tennessee basketball does have the best win of any of these teams, beating the top-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs.

And in any case, this is about the SEC resume. When you’re in this tier, the brutality of your road schedule means the most. The Vols easily had the toughest road schedule, having to face every other SEC team that had 11 conference wins or more on the road. The Mississippi State Bulldogs are the only SEC team that didn’t have a losing record in the league who didn’t host the Vols.

To be fair, LSU did manage to beat Kentucky on the road, which the Vols failed to do. And Kentucky was able to beat Auburn on the road. But LSU didn’t have to play Auburn on the road, and Kentucky has itself to blame for losing to the Tigers at home.

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This is why the SEC Tournament is actually crucial for the Vols. A team that was No. 1 for three weeks and started the year 11-0 in the league gets a neutral court to prove it’s the best. If they win the league tournament, they’ll be able to prove that it was a bad draw that cost them a shot at the regular season title.

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