Vols In Rarified Air, Looking To Ascend To New Heights

Image: Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee Athletics

By Jon Reed

With only 3 remaining regular season games, Tennessee basketball has a chance to do something it has never done in program history.

There have been many “program bests” for the Vols under Rick Barnes lately. Their five week run at number 1 earlier this season was their longest run ever and equaled the cumulative time spent at number one in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM.

The victory over LSU on Tuesday was your typical Rick Barnes SEC win, a methodical strangulation by the Big Orange Boa Constrictor. LSU had multiple long droughts and, despite scoring 10 points in the final two minutes of elevated garbage time, became the 8th power-conference opponent who failed to crack the 60-point mark against Tennessee.

It wasn’t always pretty, but the end result was beautiful.

And was victory number 23 on the season. The duo of Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack have hit that number in all four of their seasons. The last time you could say that about *any* four year stretch in Tennessee basketball history?

The answer does not exist. It has never happened. There have never been four consecutive seasons that Tennessee has won at least 23 games.

And this year’s team is still counting.

The ZZ and Mashack duo currently sits at 102 wins over their 3.8 years together. The program-record for wins during a four-year period for the program is 104, which happened in the 2007-2010 seasons. They are two wins away from tying the best era in program history. They are three away from breaking it.

If Tennessee continues to win down the stretch, they could capture another program first. A one seed in the NCAA tournament.

As of now it feels like two of the four spots are pretty much solidified with Auburn and Duke. Bruce Pearl and his War Tigers are 14-2 against Quad 1 opponents and a perfect 5-0 record against Quad 2. Even if they lost their remaining games to end the season, it seems very unlikely they’d fall off the 1 line. They’re basically a stone cold lock (word to Steven Williams who was formerly known as Steven Anderson). Duke. . . is Duke. And will almost always get the rub from the powers that be. They are “only” 6-3 against Quad 1 opponents, but they have a win over Auburn, at Louisville, and against Arizona and Illinois on neutral courts. I don’t think that the Blue Devils could lose out and still get a 1 seed, but they play in the very bad and terrible ACC; their remaining opponents are (88) Florida State and (64) Wake Forest at home and (44) North Carolina on the road.  The shouldn’t lose another one. Let’s just call Duke a lock.

That leaves two spots for four teams, Houston, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee.

Kelvin Sampson and his Cougars struggled out of the gate going only 4-3 in their first seven games. They’re now 24-4, aka winners of 20 of their last 21 games. They were able to stack two high-end quality wins on paper in their last two games beating injured versions of Iowa State and Texas Tech.

Are they ahead of Tennessee now? They weren’t in the NCAAs seeding list that came out on February 15th. In fact, they were 3 spots behind the Vols at 8th. Tennessee hasn’t lost since then but has also only racked up one win that would be deemed as “high quality.” I personally think that Houston’s pedigree combined with their hot streak and the committee’s desire to avoid having THREE one seeds from the same conference would give them the edge right now and if they were to win their last three games (Cincinnati, Kansas, and at Baylor).

Florida lost their inside-position on Tuesday night by losing to Georgia. Credit to the Bulldogs for blowing a 26-point lead, letting Florida feel like they had made a miraculous comeback, only to rip their hearts out with a go-ahead three by Blue Cain. The Gators have three Quad 1 opportunities remaining with (17) Texas A&M), at (6) Alabama, and (25) Ole Miss. It feels like they’d have to go a perfect 3-0 or have a lot of help to even be in the mix. Even if they did win out, they’d still fall a little short in terms of quality wins, getting only to 8-4 against Quad 1 as things sit now. The Vols already have 9 and Alabama has 10.

Nate Oats and the Crimson Tide lost their stranglehold on a 1 seed at Missouri as the Tigers lowkey blew them out. However, they’re still firmly in the mix. The good news is they control their own destiny; the bad news is that their next three games are at (5) Tennessee, (3) Florida, and at (2) Auburn.

Winning two of those games *may* be enough to get a one seed and would likely put Houston on the hotseat if the Vols were able to take care of business and finish running the table.

That task for Rick Barnes and his boys seems much more attainable after sweeping their two-game road trip in College Station and Baton Rouge setting up a monster game Saturday inside the historic Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. It’s an elimination game for Tennessee’s one seed dreams.

As much as basketball genius Nate Oats and his offense have been praised (please note that Nate Oats did not invent shooting 3-pointers, no matter how many time college media members want to try to convince you that he did), it has been Rick Barnes’s defense that has come out on top when the two have faced off.

The Vols are riding a three-game winning streak against Alabama with an average margin of victory of 12 points. Alabama won the three prior by an average margin of 6. But when looking at the clash of styles between Nate Oats’s fast-paced offense versus Rick Barnes’s defense, Alabama has only scored an average of 70.16 points in those six games, well below their usual output. (Yes, if I was an Alabama fan, I would be screaming about how Saturday will be the third time they’ve had to come to Knoxville in the past four meetings).

It will be the first home game for Tennessee this year that will be at a full fever pitch. Arkansas had Jonas Aidoo’s return and Coach Cal on the sidelines, but it was played while the students were still on break. Kentucky’s trip to Knoxville was in the middle of the week. The Florida game had an uneasy nervousness hovering over it for most of the first 25 minutes of game action as the Vols were riding a two game losing streak and playing without two starters.

That shouldn’t be the case on Saturday.

The Vols should come into this game confident having won 6 of their last 7, including three in a row. They’ve beaten Mark Sears and Alabama three times in a row. It’s not an early start. The game was flexed to 4pm, giving the crowd plenty of time to wake up and get ready to give their all.

Winning this game would continue the dream for the program’s first ever one seed, a new milestone for Rick Barnes to check off of his list of accomplishments. Barnes has only been a one seed one other time in his career. The year was 2003. Texas made the Final Four. It has been the only time Rick Barnes has been in the Final Four.

Getting a 1 seed could be the good luck charm for him to get him his second trip and allow the Tennessee Volunteers to check off another “first” on their list, one that all of the fans desperately want to finally achieve:

Making the program’s first ever Final Four.