Tennessee Basketball: 2022-23 season preview and outlook for Volunteers
By Elijah Campbell
Schedule Overview
The Vols have a high-quality schedule that sees plenty of travel and what is expected to be many quad-one opponents.
The season has an unofficial start with a pay-per-view exhibition against Gonzaga in Frisco, Texas on October 28th. Personally, I would have loved to have seen this be a season opener for both teams. But it is for a charitable cause and is an even better opportunity to see if Tennessee can match up with a top-five basketball team.
The non-conference schedule features a neutral site game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville against Colorado on November 13th, a neutral site game in Brooklyn against Maryland on December 11th followed by a road game against a high-quality Arizona team on December 17th. During the middle of the conference season, the Vols will host Texas in a rematch of last year’s SEC/Big 12 Challenge rock fight.
Their early season tournament is one of my personal favorites every November: Battle 4 Atlantis. The Vols take on Butler in the first round and will play the winner or loser of the USC and BYU game. Butler will be a wild card but USC and BYU are both expected to have quality teams. On the other side of the bracket, are teams such as defending champion Kansas, NC State, Dayton, and Wisconsin.
The conference schedule is loaded like it is every year. They play every SEC team at least once but will have home-and-home’s with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, South Carolina, and Auburn. When it comes to the one-time regular season conference opponents, the Vols have some favorable breaks by playing Arkansas and Alabama at home. The trickier one-time conference opponent road games will be Florida, Texas A&M, and LSU.