KNOXVILLE - Even after all the ups and downs of this basketball season for Tennessee, the Volunteers have it all to play for in the final four games of the regular season.
And they know it.
Tennessee will be fighting for its NCAA tournament life this week against Vanderbilt at home on Wednesday and at South Carolina on Saturday before final-week games against LSU and Alabama and the Southeastern Conference tournament.
"We understand the situation that we're in, and we understand that we're right there as far as tournament games and tournament," sophomore forward Admiral Schofield said Monday. "And we understand that these four games are very important, especially at the end of the season. Right now we're just taking it one game at a time.
Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes calls out during an NCAA college basketball game against Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn., on Saturday, Feb 18, 2017. Tennessee won 90-70. (Calvin Mattheis/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)"But we understand that we have to win out these four games to for sure be in the (NCAA) tournament at the end of the year. The biggest thing for us is we're here. What we've worked for, we have right in our grasp, and it's just who wants it."
The 15-12 Vols are walking a very fine line regarding the NCAA tournament bubble, according to most projections.
ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi's Monday update had Tennessee the second team out of the field of 68. USA Today's Shelby Mast has it as one of the last four teams in the tournament. Jerry Palm of CBS believes Alabama is in better position of being the fifth SEC team in the field than Tennessee and has the Vols nowhere near the bracket.
Paying too much attention to those projections is a waste of time, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes believes.
"The teams that are normally going to be the last four in are going to be teams from the power (conferences) that are all bunched up like this league is," he said. "The brackets mean nothing right now. I mean, you've got four games left.
"We've all witnessed in our lifetime teams get hot in the (league) tournament and win some more games. Teams get knocked out in the tournament that are right there. There's just so much basketball left to play in terms of the games that mean a lot. A one-game, two-game swing, four-game swing, six-game swing can do a lot for a lot of people.
"It doesn't matter what the brackets are right now. It's going to be when it's all said and done a couple of weeks from now, when everybody's body of work is put up there for the last time. If you've done enough, you'll be in, and if you haven't, you won't."
Tennessee dropped three spots to No. 50 in the NCAA's official Rating Percentage Index after Saturday's rout of Missouri (RPI of 249). The strong points of the Vols' resume are wins against eight RPI top-100 opponents and playing one of the nation's toughest schedules. Beyond the upset of Kentucky, though, Tennessee's best wins are against other bubble teams.
Rarely in the past 30 seasons have 14-loss teams received at-large bids, and to avoid entering the SEC tournament with 13, Tennessee would have to win its remaining regular-season games.
"I think there's a lot of people that think that right now will be the question of how we handle this coming down the stretch," Barnes said. "It'll be interesting because some of these guys, a number of them are a year removed from high school, and the stakes are obviously bigger now than they've ever been involved with. It'll be interesting to see how they respond.
"Like you, I don't know. I hope that they just take care of the process and we go out and we do what we talk about."
Should the Vols wind up falling short of the NCAA tournament, they'll be able to point to five losses in which they led by at least 13 points, most significantly the near-upset at North Carolina in December, as reasons why.
Right now, though, there's too much at stake to focus on the what-ifs.
"I think we want it enough," Schofield said, "but I think the mental aspect we've still got to grow in.
"We had a big win on Saturday, but we've got to understand we've got another opponent coming in on Wednesday and then an opponent on Saturday. We've got to really focus on (Vanderbilt), take it one game at a time, execute the game plan, defend at the high level, rebound the ball at a high level and score the ball at a high level.
"We've got to come out and execute the game plan like what we go over in practice every day, understand what the coaches want for us and understand that our intensity today prepares for what we can bring on Wednesday."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.