The Tennessee Volunteers began January as the No. 1 team in college basketball and ended that month with a 4-4 record in Southeastern Conference.
Their second eight-game block of league contests has yielded a 7-1 record entering this week’s closing stretch of Wednesday night’s (9 on ESPN2) game at Ole Miss and Saturday afternoon’s home finale against South Carolina. Tennessee’s recent surge has resulted in a 24-5 record, an 11-5 SEC mark and a projected No. 1 seed in the looming NCAA tournament.
So what changed?
“I think our guys have just found a way to win, whether it was at (Texas) A&M where we shot the ball well or at LSU where we kind of just gutted that one out,” Vols assistant coach Gregg Polinsky said Tuesday in a news conference. “Obviously we just gutted out the Alabama game and found a way to win against a really good team.”
The Vols are having to move on from Saturday’s 79-76 victory over the Crimson Tide that was sealed by Jahmai Mashack’s 3-pointer from 32 feet as the horn sounded. Amazingly, it was Tennessee’s first buzzer-beating triumph this century inside the Food City Center, and memories of that finish won’t be evaporating anytime soon.