Tennessee basketball jumps four spots in the updated AP Poll ranking. The Vols are coming off a 20-point win over Florida, and they are back in the top five as a result.
The Vols split their two games this past week for the third time in a row, but that didn't prevent them from jumping from No. 8 to No. 4 in the AP Poll.
Tennessee is the third-highest SEC team in the updated poll, sitting behind No. 1 Auburn and No. 3 Alabama. Behind the Vols are No. 5 Houston, No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Purdue, No. 8 Iowa State, No. 9 Michigan State, and Texas A&M rounds out the top ten.
Rick Barnes and the Vols rallied without two starters against Florida to put a dominant 20-point win. Zakai Zeigler and Igor Milicic both sat out of Saturday's game after suffering a close loss to Kentucky at home.
Things didn't look good for the Vols, but they rallied around Chaz Lanier and took down the Gators, earning another top-five home win. Lanier scored 19 points and shot five-for-nine from three-point range. Tennessee is now 6-0 against AP top-five teams at home in the Rick Barnes era.
Zeigler is expected to return to play this week, and hopefully, Milicic will be back as well after suffering from flu-like symptoms last week.
This week won't get much easier for the Vols. Tennessee hosts No. 20 Missouri, who is 6-2 in conference play, on Wednesday and unranked Oklahoma on Saturday. That will be Tennessee's first unranked conference opponent since January 18, which just shows how deep the SEC is this year.