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Tennessee basketball: Vols top 10 modern-era teams with under 20 wins

By Caleb Calhoun

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY - MARCH 03: John Fulkerson #10 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates after the 81-73 win against the Kentucky Wildcats at Rupp Arena on March 03, 2020 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY - MARCH 03: John Fulkerson #10 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates after the 81-73 win against the Kentucky Wildcats at Rupp Arena on March 03, 2020 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images /

With a 17-14 record to finish 2019-2020, Tennessee basketball failed to win 20 games. Here are the top 10 modern-era Volunteers teams that did that.

If the postseason was able to continue, Rick Barnes’ fifth Tennessee basketball team may not have fallen into this category. After all, the Vols were about to start the SEC Tournament with 17 wins, just three short of that 20-win mark.

To just make the NCAA Tournament, hey would have likely had to make it to Sunday in the SEC Tournament, which would mean three wins right there. Even if they didn’t playing the Alabama Crimson Tide on Thursday plus being a lock for the NIT would give them plenty of chances to get those three wins.

However, with the season ending prematurely, Tennessee basketball’s 2019-2020, fair or unfair, joins a list of Vols teams to fail to reach 20 wins. In the modern era, that has often been a barometer for reaching the NCAA Tournament. Sometimes that’s not the case, though.

Does this team compare to other teams in UT history that didn’t win 20 games? Well, let’s find out. Here, we’re going to rank the greatest Vols teams that didn’t make it to that 20-win mark in the modern era of the sport.

For us, the modern era starts in 1975. That’s the first year the NCAA Tournament expanded to 32 teams and started accepting at-large bids. Those two things obviously changed the landscape of college basketball, and that was the case for Rocky Top.

Our criteria for this list is simple. The team can’t have reached 20 wins. By the way, even if they reached those wins due to postseason play, such as NIT success or a deep NCAA Tournament run, they still won’t make the list. They can’t have 20 wins at all.

After that, we’ll analyze record, what each team did do in the postseason and their schedule strength. Taking all that into account, let’s go ahead and look back on teams that maybe didn’t compete with the best teams on Rocky Top but still had some success. These are the 10 best teams that failed to reach 20 wins in Tennessee basketball history.

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