Tennessee basketball: 5 disadvantages Vols face in the SEC Tournament

1. The SEC Tournament is a curse on the Vols. 

Forget Rick Barnes. Nobody is more cursed in conference tournaments than Tennessee basketball. They haven’t won the SEC Tournament championship in 40 years. In fact, their last tournament title, 1979, was also the first year the tournament was reinstated after 27 years. And it was Don DeVoe’s first year on the job.

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Since then, it’s been a noteworthy run of infamous flameouts. Now, you can explain why that would happen in the 1990s during the Wade Houston and Kevin O’Neil years, and it also makes sense for the Buzz Peterson years. The transition period after Bruce Pearl and before the program took back off under Barnes also makes sense.

But out of 40 years, that excuses maybe 20 years. What about the other 20? Since that 1979 season, the Vols have won or shared four SEC regular season championships, and one of those was outright in 2008. But they haven’t won a tournament championship yet.

In fact, they had an embarrassing streak in which they never even made it to the semifinals from 1992 all the way until 2008, and that included the four years under Jerry Green. Then in 2008, the year we keep referencing, they reached No. 1 for the first time ever and easily dominated the SEC. Nobody else was even ranked in the conference as it was in a down year.

Somehow, though, the Vols managed to lose on Saturday to the Arkansas Razorbacks. A tornado that moved the tournament on Friday from the Georgia Dome to Alexander Memorial Coliseum messed everything up. That lost also cost UT a No. 1 seed and put them in the toughest bracket.

Every single charter member of the SEC that’s still in the conference has won a tournament title since the Vols last won it, and one non-charter member, the Arkansas Razorbacks, won it. That’s an insane stat.

Simply put, Tennessee basketball is cursed in the SEC Tournament. Barnes almost broke it last year by making it to Sunday, as Bruce Pearl did back in 2009, but both times, they lost close ones. So the curse lives on. And it’s another big disadvantage, albeit supernatural, that is facing the Vols as they enter it this year.