Tennessee basketball: Vols at South Carolina a fight for NCAA Tournament bubble
When Tennessee basketball pays a visit to Columbia, S.C. Saturday, the Volunteers and South Carolina will be fighting for a spot on the bubble.
It’s not cliche to say Tennessee basketball is now in the heart of its season. The Vols have a brutal slate left, as their final five games are against top 50 RPI teams. Before they get to that point, though, they share a fight with their Saturday opponent, the South Carolina Gamecocks.
UT and South Carolina are No. 66 and No. 65 respectively in the RealTimeRPI rankings. They are No. 65 and No. 66 respectively in the NET rankings. Now, Rocky Top is No. 52 while S.C. is No. 57 in the ESPN BPI rankings.
However, the other two rankings send a clear message. Tennessee basketball and South Carolina are facing off Saturday for a chance to reach the NCAA Tournament bubble. The one who loses will fall behind down the stretch of the season.
Rick Barnes’ team beat Frank Martin’s team by one at home earlier this season. That was before Uros Plavsic arrived and Santiago Vescovi fully developed. As a result, the Vols are much better now. But this game is in South Carolina, and the Gamecocks have added versatility to their style of play as well.
Unlike the Vols, South Carolina has a much weaker strength of schedule overall, and they only play two top 50 RPI teams down the stretch while also playing two teams outside of the top 100 of the RPI. Their pack is more a middle of the road schedule.
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That would seem to favor the Vols. But if UT, who is currently 14-10 and 6-5 in the SEC, loses this game, then South Carolina, who is 15-9 and 7-4 in the SEC, will have the upper hand by two games in regular season and conference records. And they will likely extend that gap with the way the schedules play out down the stretch.
On the other hand, if Tennessee basketball wins, they will have swept the Gamecocks, and even if they finish with a worse record at the end of the year, that sweep and their much tougher strength of schedule would favor them in any NCAA Tournament conversation. So they would get the upper hand with a win as well.
Either team that wins will likely vault close to the top 60 of the RPI and NET rankings, while the loser could fall out of the top 70. That small gap is the difference between being on the bubble and not even receiving a look. So what happens in Saturday night’s 6 p.m. ET SEC Network matchup is a huge deal for both teams, and that makes things extremely exciting.
Both Martin and Barnes have joined the ranks of highly respected SEC coaches given what they have done at their respective schools. But they have yet to reach the NCAA Tournament in the same year while coaching at their current schools. When they were both in the Big 12, at the Texas Longhorns and Kansas State Wildcats, they did it four of five times.
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The same truth will likely hold up this year. There appears to only be room for one of them to reach the Big Dance. Saturday’s matchup will go a long way towards determining which team is in the running for that possibility.