As January’s portion of Southeastern Conference basketball was winding down, there was little doubt as to this season’s game of the year.
Alabama was 8-0 in league play, while Tennessee was 7-1 and coming off an 82-71 throttling of Texas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. All signs were pointing to a seismic showdown Wednesday night inside Thompson-Boling Arena, but the two teams have since headed in opposite directions to remove some of the shine.
The Crimson Tide, who were surprisingly obliterated at Oklahoma in the Big 12/SEC event, have improved to 22-3 overall, 12-0 in league play and are No. 1 nationally for the second time in program history. The Volunteers, though, have lost three of their four February contests to tumble to 19-6 overall, 8-4 within the SEC and to No. 10 in the rankings.
“They are more than worthy of being the No. 1 team in the country,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes told reporters earlier this week. “They’ve earned it and maybe should have been there before right now. They have great roster construction where everyone understands what they need, and guys play their roles.”
Barnes and the Vols enter Wednesday’s game (7 on ESPN2) having defeated five consecutive top-10 teams at home, but none of those victims were ranked at the top.
Alabama’s four recent wins include humiliations of Vanderbilt (101-44) and Florida (97-69), with the closest being last Saturday’s 77-69 victory at Auburn. Junior guard and Ohio University transfer Mark Sears has been scorching, averaging 15.7 points the past three games on 15-of-24 shooting — including 9-of-14 from 3-point range — but the star of the show continues to be freshman forward Brandon Miller.
The 6-foot-9, 200-pounder from the Nashville suburb of Antioch leads Alabama with 32.9 minutes, 18.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game.
“I don’t think you stop great players when the day is done,” Barnes said. “He’s going to get his points, but you’ve just got to hope that he had to work to get all of them.”
Miller has been described as a young Kevin Durant, the four-time NBA scoring champion and two-time NBA Finals MVP who played his lone college season under Barnes at Texas in 2006-07.
“I don’t think it’s fair to do player comparisons, but I know Brandon is having a great, great year,” Barnes said. “Kevin Durant won every national player of the year honor you could win and was the first freshman to sweep them all, but Brandon Miller has a high-level game at every level. Brandon Miller is Brandon Miller, and I think Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant, but Brandon Miller has certainly made an unbelievable impact on college basketball this year.”
Alabama’s visit comes at a time when Tennessee is somewhat shell-shocked following losses last week to Vanderbilt (66-65) and Missouri (86-85) on 3-pointers as time expired. Mizzou’s defeat of the Vols came on DeAndre Gholston’s heave from nearly 30 feet.
“When you go through the kind of losses we’ve had, every person has to deal with it in his own way,” Barnes said. “The one thing that has to happen is that you have to stay connected, and this group of guys will stay connected.”
Said Vols sophomore forward Jonas Aidoo: “There is nothing we can do about that shot. It just went in.”
ODDS AND ENDS
Tennessee trails its series with Alabama 82-70, but the Vols hold a 47-23 advantage in Knoxville matchups.
Barnes was a Crimson Tide assistant under Wimp Sanderson during the 1985-86 season.
This is only the third top-10 pairing in Thompson-Boling’s 36-year history but the second within three weeks, as the Vols were No. 4 and Texas No. 10 on Jan. 28.
Tennessee’s average attendance of 18,479 at home ranks fourth nationally behind Kentucky (19,780), North Carolina (19,578) and Arkansas (19,020).
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.