Needing a boost

KNOXVILLE — Several of Chris Lofton’s Tennessee basketball teammates danced around the issue.

But the Volunteers’ star senior guard, a man of few words, admitted that the past week has taken a toll.

“I’m tired,” Lofton said Sunday. “I’m so sore and tired right now.”

Three nationally televised rivalry games in eight days brought unprecedented scrutiny on the Vols (26-3, 12-2 SEC), who dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 in both major polls Monday.

“Some of this stuff is uncharted territory for us,” third-year coach Bruce Pearl said Sunday. “I think that there’s been a lot of pressure on this team, and I think after this game I hope we’re going to be able to relax a little bit more.”

Not surprisingly, Pearl’s tune changed Monday as he went through his weekly reminder of the next two games’ potential problems. Tennessee plays Wednesday at 2006 and ’07 national champion Florida (21-8, 8-6), which could rise above this year’s NCAA tournament bubble by beating the Vols.

And Saturday’s home game against South Carolina will be Dave Odom’s last regular-season game as the Gamecocks coach.

“It’s always something,” Pearl said.

The Vols can clinch their first overall SEC championship in 41 seasons as early as Wednesday, if they win at Florida and Vanderbilt wins its home game with Mississippi State. If the Bulldogs hand the Commodores their first home loss of the season, UT can still win the outright title by winning its final two games.

“It’s in our hands,” Vols sophomore forward Tyler Smith said. “That ring is there for us to take.”

Indeed. After several months of labor, the Vols need just one more push to achieve their first goal — the elusive, outright conference championship.

Lofton said UT’s weekend clinching of at least a shared SEC Eastern Division title is “nice, but what we really want is to win the SEC outright.”

Whether these Vols have enough energy to finish this week on top seems to be a viable question. Pearl and his players adamantly deny suggestions that they’ve peaked, but they agree that one of the nation’s toughest schedules has left them mentally drained.

UT has played the second toughest schedule in NCAA Division I basketball, according to RealTimeRPI.com. That site has the Vols 9-2 against the nation’s top 50 RPI teams and 13-3 against the top 75.

The Vols opened their season with Atlantic 10 power Temple and played neutral-site games with West Virginia and Texas, which have RPIs of 42 and 5. When other teams relaxed around the Christmas holidays, the Vols played Xavier and Gonzaga — RPIs No. 6 and 31 — on the road.

On their lone SEC off weekend, the Vols played a Saturday prime-time game against then-No. 1 Memphis, which has the nation’s second-highest RPI mark.

It’s no wonder the Vols lead the RPI standings by a wide margin, giving them a solid case to be the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament.

“You can feel it mentally,” Tyler Smith said. “I don’t think it’s physical, because Coach and his staff prepare us well for stuff like this. But I think mentally, we’ve had to think so much.

“It takes a toll on you.”

Added sophomore forward Wayne Chism: “I don’t want to say it, because it will show up in the papers, but we’re mentally (tired).”

Lofton said UT will be tested to “find some gas” this week.

“I hope we do,” Lofton added. “We’ve got to. It’s coming down to the gritty time of the season.”

Pearl was clearly annoyed with a reporter’s question about the team wearing down. He initially laughed and said, “Just wait and see ... stay tuned,” before finding more familiar, long-winded form.

“At Memphis, at Vanderbilt, against Kentucky at home with the SEC East championship on the line (in eight days),” Pearl said. “And here’s the other thing. We love to play in the 80s and 90s. We love to run. We love to press. But we’ll beat you in the 60s, too.

“We’ll beat you at your game, and we’ll beat you at our game. You decide.”