Tennessee basketball: Vols should control own destiny for No. 1 seed
The Gonzaga Bulldogs losing in the WCC Tournament helps Tennessee basketball. Now, the Volunteers should control their own destiny for a top seed.
With the SEC Tournament underway, Tennessee basketball won’t play until Friday. But after the Gonzaga Bulldogs’ loss on Tuesday, the NET Rankings, AP and Coaches’ Polls and RPI rankings show one thing: the Vols should be a top-seed if they win the tournament championship.
Right now, Tennessee is No. 6 in the NET rankings. They are No. 8 in the realtime RPI, and they are No. 8 in both polls, which came out before Gonzaga’s loss. If they were to win the tournament, that would mean a loss by the Kentucky Wildcats, who are ahead of them in all these polls. At that point, the Vols would have to be No. 7 in both the polls and the RPI and No. 5 in the NET minimum.
Meanwhile, the North Carolina Tar Heels, Duke Blue Devils and Virginia Cavaliers are all ahead of the Vols in the RPI and polls, and Duke and UVA are ahead in the NET rankings. Two of those teams have to lose this weekend, and one of them, Duke or UNC, would get a sixth loss.
As a result, at worst, that should move the Vols to No. 5 in both polls along with the NET rankings and No. 6 in the RPI. Should Duke and UNC both lose, they could move to No. 4 right there in everything but the RPI.
Still, the RPI is working the most against them. But what nobody’s taking into account is what winning the tournament would do for their schedule strength. Ranked in the top 50 right now, you have to assume that the Vols will get a couple of tough opponents in the SEC Tournament to boost their schedule strength and in the process boost their record.
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On top of that, head to head with the Gonzaga Bulldogs should count. If their RPI score improves, they’ll vault the Bulldogs with a better schedule strength, and they’ll vault them in the polls. Take that into account with their game in December, and you have to put them ahead of the Zags.
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They should have their resume move them ahead of teams like the Houston Cougars and Texas Tech Red Raiders if that happens. And while the Kansas Jayhawks are the No. 1 team in the RPI, they aren’t going to get a top seed.
Simply put, with Tennessee basketball no lower than No. 8 in any poll right now, them winning the tournament would automatically vault them ahead of at least three teams, whomever they may be. And it would almost certainly vault them ahead of four in the RPI.
At this point, nine teams are ahead of the Vols in any of the three major polls. One has already lost this week and lost to UT earlier in the year. At least three more are guaranteed to lose in their conference tournaments, and if UT wins the SEC Tournament, one more team would have to lose for that to happen in Kentucky.
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So by Sunday, there is no feasible way Tennessee basketball could be below a top four team in the nation. By the way, the Kentucky Wildcats are in the same boat. And, honestly, so are the LSU Tigers if they somehow keep up what they’ve been doing. Simply put, if one of those teams wins the SEC Tournament, at this point, it should mean an automatic No. 1 seed.