Tennessee basketball’s 2022-23 non-conference schedule: Quality of cupcakes an issue

An underrated part of college basketball for major programs is how good their circled-win opponents are. Under Rick Barnes, Tennessee basketball will always have its high-profile opponents, including elite Power Five programs and notable mid-majors.

This year, that includes the Colorado Buffaloes, Arizona Wildcats, Texas Longhorns and Maryland Terrapins. In the Battle 4 Atlantis, they will face the Butler Bulldogs, the BYU Cougars or USC Trojans and the Kansas Jayhawks, N.C. State Wolfpack, Wisconsin Badgers or Dayton Flyers.

All of those teams plus SEC play will bolster Tennessee basketball’s strength of schedule. However, the lower-level teams that were revealed as their full non-conference schedule was released Tuesday actually does create a bit of a concern.

UT will face the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles, Florida Gulf Coast Eagles, McNeese State Cowboys, Eastern Kentucky Colonels and Austin Peay Governors. None of those teams appear to be legitimate threats at their own level, and as such, none will threaten the Vols.

When you play those circled-win games, you want them to be teams that could potentially win their conference and secure automatic berths as low seeds in the NCAA Tournament. That prepares you for potential upsets along the way, but it also boosts your overall schedule strength.

In the old days, when the Selection Committee relied heavily on RPI, playing the better teams at those levels was a great workaround to improve your schedule strength. It helped the Vols secure a No. 2 seed in 2006 and cost them an NCAA Tournament bid in 2012.

With less reliance on the RPI, it’s not as crucial to your NCAA Tournament resume, but it still helps in a big way regardless of the formula you use. As a result, Tennessee basketball’s slate of these games could end up doing them harm.

Only one of those teams, Florida Gulf Coast, finished last year with a winning record, going 22-12. However, they are undergoing a coaching change, bringing in former Penn State Nittany Lions head coach Pat Chambers, so a down year is to be expected.

Alcorn State, to be fair, went .500, won the SWAC regular season title and made the NIT last year. However, they lost four of their nine rotational players, including Justin Thomas, the only player to average double figures on the team. They also added no newcomers.

Eastern Kentucky is the only program on this list to have had a winning record under its head coach, and that came in 2020-21 when A.W. Hamilton took them 22-7. However, that’s been their only winning season in four years there, and it’s a bit tainted because of how COVID impacted everything that season.

This year, EKU is coming off a 13-18 campaign and lost six of 10 rotational players. That includes two starters plus Jomaru Brown, who came off the bench but was the leading scorer last year. Simply put, there’s not much to expect from this year’s team.

McNeese State and Austin Peay are entering their second seasons under their current head coaches and went 11-22 and 12-17 respectively last year. Tennessee Tech has gone 25-66 in three years and is yet to have a winning season under former Arkansas Razorbacks head coach John Pelphrey, going 11-21 last year.

Do any of these teams give you a reason to believe they can help Tennessee basketball in any way? They shouldn’t. To be fair, the Vols’ higher-end Group of Five foes in Butler and potentially Dayton are also not great draws given the state of both programs, as neither is top 25 caliber. Add in this slate, and the quality of their easy foes is a problem.