Tennessee basketball projections for NCAA Tournament: ESPN's Joe Lunardi tabs Vols as 1 seed
Tennessee basketball is dancing as a projected No. 1 seed.
Fresh off a win against LSU, the Vols are now projected by ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi as the No. 4 overall seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. He previously had Tennessee as the No. 5 overall (making it the top-ranked 2 seed). But, with the Vols' resume statement win over Kentucky and their lopsided victory vs. LSU, Lunardi bumped Rick Barnes' squad up a seed on Thursday. Tennessee joins Purdue, UConn and Houston as the other No. 1 projected seeds.
"Tennessee takes its turn as the fourth No. 1 seed after a 20-point beating of LSU," Lunardi wrote in his latest bracketology release.
— Joe Lunardi (@ESPNLunardi) February 8, 2024
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With a little over a month to go in the regular season, the Vols currently stand at 9-5 in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games according to the NCAA's NET rankings. Metrically speaking, Tennessee holds a NET ranking of No. 6 and has a minimum of five potential Quad 1 opponents — Alabama, Auburn, Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas A&M — still to play on its schedule before heading to Nashville for the SEC Tournament.
Following the Vols' road win at Kentucky, Lunardi wrote Saturday that Tennessee "firmly made its case for a No. 1 seed" and "certainly passed any possible "eye test," giving us five teams with legitimate top-line profiles."
"The knee-jerk reaction after Saturday would be to drop Houston and move Tennessee up, but that would be the wrong impulse and unlikely what the committee would do in similar circumstances," Lunardi wrote. "The Cougars still have the metrics and wins to sit behind only Purdue and UConn, leaving UNC and UT for the final spot. The Tar Heels' slight edge is reinforced by a pre-conference win over the Vols. Kentucky, meanwhile, lost a chance to regain a top four seed while losing for the third time in four starts."
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As Lunardi points out, Tennessee doesn't hold the head-to-head- tiebreaker against UNC, as it lost to the Tar Heels in the ACC/SEC Challenge earlier this season.
But if things stand and Tennessee does hear its name as a No. 1 seed on selection Sunday, it would be the first time in program history. The highest the Vols have been seeded is at No. 2, most recently coming under Barnes in 2019.
Here's a year-by-year breakdown of where the Vols have been seeded in the NCAA Tournament under Barnes:
2016: Missed tournament
2017: Missed tournament
2018: No. 3 seed
2019: No. 2 seed
2020: Tournament cancelled due to COVID-19
2021: No. 3 seed
2022: No. 3 seed
2023: No. 4 seed
Tennessee (17-5, 7-2 SEC) next plays Saturday on the road at Texas A&M (14-8, 5-4 SEC) at 9 p.m. ET in College Station, Texas.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee basketball NCAA Tournament projections: Vols tabbed as 1 seed
