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Tennessee basketball: 5 reasons Vols should win the SEC Tournament

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - MARCH 02: Grant Williams #2 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates in the game against the Kentucky Wildcats at Thompson-Boling Arena on March 02, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - MARCH 02: Grant Williams #2 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates in the game against the Kentucky Wildcats at Thompson-Boling Arena on March 02, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images /

4. Veteran leadership and a tough closing schedule should prepare the Vols.

Nobody is going to be more prepared and focused for the SEC Tournament than Tennessee basketball, and there are a few reasons for that. For starters, they have a veteran coach in Rick Barnes who is not going to let his players let up. On top of that, they are incredibly experienced.

But those are two things that have been a staple of the program all year. What really works in their favor is how they finished the season. While they capitalized on an easy schedule to spend four weeks at No. 1, they had a brutal finish to the season.

Five of their final seven games were against teams who will certainly make the NCAA Tournament, and six of their final seven games were at least against teams on the bubble, including their final five games. On top of that, four of those games were on the road.

Simply put, they had a very rough finish, and although they only went 4-3 in those final seven games, they clearly prepared themselves for the tournament. The Vols were no longer able to get away with mistakes they got away with earlier in the year, and being able to correct them when they did is a huge plus.

As a result, they’ll have the most focus of any team. They’ve been in nothing but toss-up games for three straight weeks, so that just makes the tournament something that has been par for the course for them recently. That’s a huge advantage.

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