Tennessee basketball bracketology rising slightly entering SEC Tournament
Closing out the regular season with a 65-54 win over the Florida Gators Sunday to secure a top four seed in the SEC Tournament was not enough to get Tennessee basketball back in the top 25. They were six spots out of both polls, with 14 votes in the AP Poll and nine in the Coaches Poll.
However, there’s no doubt that the win improved the Vols’ NCAA Tournament standing slightly. At 17-7 and with a 10-7 finish in the SEC, the Vols came in at No. 18 in the NCAA NET Rankings, the most important metric in the seeding for March Madness.
More impressively, Tennessee basketball beat three of the four teams ahead of it in the rankings: the Arkansas Razorbacks, Kansas Jayhawks and Colorado Buffaloes. They did lose to the Alabama Crimson Tide, who won the regular season SEC Championship.
For what it’s worth, that win over Florida helped the Vols jump from No. 60 to No. 55 in the RealTime RPI this past week, largely due to another top 50 win on their resume. As a result, they are almost firmly in the tournament regardless of which metric is used. The bracketology experts seem to think so.
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Joe Lunardi of ESPN kept the Vols as a No. 6 seed in his projections this week. He has them in a weekend-opening bracket with the No. 3 seed West Virginia Mountaineers, No. 14 seed Morehead State Eagles and, their projected first-round opponent, No. 11 seed Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. The Michigan Wolverines are the top seed in that region.
Mike DeCourcy of FOX Sports also kept UT as a No. 6 seed. In fact, he kept their first-round opponent, the No. 11 seed Drake Bulldogs, and had them in a weekend-opening bracket with the No. 3 seed West Virginia Mountaineers and No. 14 seed Siena Saints. Michigan was again the top seed in that bracket.
Jerry Palm of CBS Sports jumped Rocky Top from a No. 7 to a No. 5 seed. Now, they are set to face a No. 12 seed play-in game winner between the VCU Rams and Xavier Musketeers in his bracket. He has them in a weekend opening bracket with the No. 4 seed Oklahoma State Cowboys and No. 13 seed Liberty Flames and in a region with the top-seeded Illinois Fighting Illini.
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Obviously, this seeding could change given how things go this weekend, but Tennessee basketball should have a chance to improve its standing. The Vols will play their first SEC Tournament game Friday against either the Florida Gators, Vanderbilt Commodores or Texas A&M Aggies. If they face Florida and win, that’s another quality victory to improve their resume.