Tennessee's Top-Ranked Team Elevates Record to 9-0, Readies for Challenging SEC Agenda
In the later part of March 2015, Rick Barnes discovered himself out of work. The University of Texaslet go of Barnes as their men's basketball coach despite the Longhorns winning 69.1% of their games during Barnes' 17-year stint and making the NCAA tournament 16 times.
Two days later, Barnesshifted to the University of Tennessee, a program that had let go of Donnie Tyndall after just one season. Barnes didn’t make an instant impact, as the Volunteers went a combined 31-35 in his first two seasons and missed the NCAAs both years. Since then, Tennessee has been one of the nation's top programs.
On Tuesday, No. 1 Tennessee continued its winning streak, defeating Miami, 75-62, at Madison Square Garden for the Jimmy V Classic. The event,organized every year since 1995, honors former coach and ESPN analyst Jim Valvano, who passed away from cancer at the age of 47 in April 1993. And it has a special meaning to Barnes, who knew Valvano early in his coaching career and has contributed to cancer research.
The Volunteers (9-0) are ranked first in the AP poll for the first time since they were ranked first for four weeks in January and February 2019. The only other time they were ranked first in the poll occurred for one week in February 2008.
Barnes discussed the top ranking with his team on Monday night shortly after the poll was released.
“I said, ‘Embrace it,’” said Barnes, whose 815 career victories rank him 13th among Division 1 coaches and second among active coaches. “We didn’t start out the season saying where we were going to be ranked...I said, ‘While you’re there, you guys have a chance to play as the number one team in the country tonight and we should embrace it.’”
This season, Tennessee has won each of its games by at least 13 points and has victories over Baylor as well as four Atlantic Coast Conference teams (Louisville, Virginia, Syracuse and Miami). During their first nine games, the Volunteers have only trailed for a combined 6 minutes and 39 seconds, including 36 seconds on Tuesday night.
Miami took the lead, 25-24, on a hook shot from Lynn Kidd with 7:58 remaining in the first half, but the Hurricanes didn’t score again the rest of the half. At the break, Tennessee led, 38-25, thanks to a 14-0 run to end the half. The Volunteers expanded their lead to 18 points midway through the second half and handed Miami (3-7) its seventh straight loss.
Tennessee is performing well despite only returning one starter (point guard Zakai Zeigler) from last season’s team that finished 27-9, won the Southeastern Conference regular season title and lost to eventual national runner-up Purdue in the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight.
Dalton Knecht, a first team All-American last season and current Los Angeles Lakers rookie guard, is among the players who no longer call Tennessee home. But like Knecht, who played at Northern Colorado for two seasons before transferring to Tennessee, the Volunteers have received major contributions from small college transfers.
Chaz Lanier, a transfer from the University of North Florida, led Tennessee with 22 points on Tuesday. Igor Milicic Jr., a transfer from Charlotte, added 16 points and 9 rebounds. Lanier is the team's top scorer (19.1 points per game), while Milicic Jr. is next with 12.9 points per game. Still, Barnes said Lanier has room to improve. Lanier played for four seasons at North Florida and averaged 19.7 points per game last season, but it was against weaker competition than he is currently facing.
“To (Lanier’s) defense, this is all new to him,” Barnes said. “He's never dealt with what he's dealing with right now, and you have to give him an A+ for what he’s done up to this point. But for him to go where I know he wants to go, he will continue to add to his game, which he’s going to have to, because people aren’t just going to let him stand and catch the ball and shoot it.”
Zeigler, a 5-foot-9 point guard and native of Long Island, N.Y., added 13 points and 9 assists. He has been at Tennessee for four seasons, where he’s experienced ups and downs. In March 2023, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament and missed the remainder of the season, including Tennessee’s loss in the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 at Madison Square Garden. On Tuesday, he was able to play in the arena, which is about 40 miles from home, and help his team to victory.
“I remember the (2023) game, and it was pretty tough to watch honestly,” said Zeigler, who is averaging 12.1 points and 8 assists per game. “I’m a sore loser, to be honest. But being able to come back and get a win in front of a lot of hometown friends, family...it was really meaningful to me, honestly, being able to get that win today and see everybody out there.”
Despite being ranked first, Tennessee isn't taking things lightly with its tough conference schedule ahead. Out of the 25 teams in the AP top 25, nine are from the SEC, including Tennessee itself, ranked second by Auburn, fifth by Kentucky, seventh by Alabama, ninth by Florida, twelfth by Oklahoma, seventeenth by Texas A&M, nineteenth by Ole Miss, and twenty-fifth by Mississippi State. This is the first time the SEC has five teams in the top 10.
Tennessee plays Florida and Kentucky twice each and the other six top 25 teams once each. The SEC's other seven teams aren't shabby either. In fact, the league had 13 teams in the top 50 in Ken Pomeroy's ratings through Monday's games. The others were ranked fifty-fourth by LSU (8-1), sixty-first by Vanderbilt (9-1), and sixty-seventh by South Carolina (6-3). Through Monday, the SEC's teams had a combined record of 125-19, winning nearly 87% of their games, including 15-7 against AP top 25 teams.
In the past eight seasons, Tennessee has the highest overall winning percentage (.732) and the most overall victories (180) of any SEC team. They are also tied for first in the league with 18 postseason victories during those years, including nine SEC tournament and nine NCAA tournament wins. They have made the NCAA tournament every year since 2018 and have never been seeded worse than fifth.
However, Tennessee has never made it past the Elite Eight, not even under Barnes or any other coach. This season, they aim to become the first Final Four team in the program's history, but they are not getting overconfident.
"We come in every day with a mindset to improve," Zeigler said. "Even though we got ranked number one in the country, honestly, we weren't thinking like that in the locker room. We had little smiles on our faces, but we know our ultimate goal."
Barnes' shift to the University of Tennessee in 2015 involved a move into a new business realm, as he became a college basketball coach for a team that had recently changed coaches itself. With the Volunteers, Barnes tackled the challenge of rebuilding a program and guiding it towards success.
Tackling the business aspect of sports, Tennessee's men's basketball team has seen a significant increase in its monetary value with its recent success. The Volunteers are now ranked first in the AP poll and have a tough conference schedule ahead, creating significant revenue opportunities for the university through ticket sales, merchandise, and potential tournament earnings.
