NCAA Basketball: Top 16 reveal, Tennessee’s hidden flaw, and more weekly takeaways
By Brian Rauf
2) Hidden flaws in Tennessee‘s resume
Tennessee is a very good team and it’s clear the selection committee thinks very highly of them. After all, their only loss came in overtime to a healthy Kansas team and they’ve won 18 consecutive games since.
However, Tennessee’s resume is far from complete.
This season, they only have two wins over teams that are considered locks to make the NCAA Tournament (Louisville, Gonzaga). And the first of those came against a Cardinals team that was playing at a considerably lower level in November.
Since that win over the Zags on Dec. 9, the closest thing the Vols have to a big win came at home against Alabama – a game the Vols only won by three.
Again, I’m not here to tell you that Tennessee stinks or even that they’re overrated. We just haven’t seen themselves prove they’re one of the two teams in the nation yet.
Those tests will start coming next Saturday when the Vols hit the road to face Kentucky in Lexington. Then their final five games of the year are all against teams solidly projected to be in the tournament field – at LSU, at Ole Miss, Kentucky, Mississippi State, and at Auburn.
Tennessee has proven that they’re one of the nation’s top teams, but I still don’t think we’ve seen them prove where they stand among that group of top teams – and we won’t know until they go through that stretch.