1. Tennessee (10-0)
The recent success at Tennessee has been profound and the Volunteers still find themselves atop the national rankings thanks to great offense and elite defense. Prior to this week, Tennessee proved their strength in great wins over Louisville, Baylor, and Syracuse and built that resume even further in recent days.
Back on Tuesday the Volunteers were at Madison Square Garden for the Jimmy V Classic and got a 75-62 win over Miami. Chaz Lanier was brilliant as usual with 22 points while Igor Milicic Jr. added 16 points and 9 rebounds. Saturday’s challenge was far more significant and the Volunteers got a significant road win at Illinois, winning 66-64 with a buzzer beater from Jordan Gainey. The shots really weren’t falling, as Tennessee made just 32% of their field goals, but Gainey had 23 points off the bench and they did enough to remain unbeaten.
This past week proved again that Tennessee can win in hostile environments and they’ll certainly need to do that when SEC play begins in a few weeks. The defense really came through yet again against an upstart Illinois team on a day when the shots weren’t going in the basket. No matter how you slice it, Tennessee is producing results and now get four straight very winnable home games to take them into 2025.
Thus completes another week of rankings and evaluating the Top 25 teams in the country. As we quickly approach the holidays, we’re getting a firmer idea on where these teams stand, but do you agree with who we’ve included in this edition of the rankings?