Wiedmer: Vols defying the odds at SEC tournament

Mark Wiedmer

NASHVILLE – The words ran along the bottom of the television screen in ESPN’s news ticker early Thursday evening. With Tennessee’s

on the first full day of the Southeastern Conference tournament not 30 minutes old, the news item said the Commodores were still projected to be among the last four teams in the NCAA tournament field.

This is the really important news of this weekend. Are you in the field or out? And if in, comfortably in? Or nervously in? And if out, barely out? Or so far out you’d need a telescope, a plane ticket and a presidential pardon to receive an invite?

We’ve made ESPN resident bracketologist Joe Lunardi into some hoops version of Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama and the Amazing Kreskin all rolled into one.

Never has an assistant vice president of marketing communications – which is Lunardi’s day job at St. Joseph’s University – grown such a cult following over his near-cosmic ability to correctly predict the 68-team NCAA tourney field.