Tennessee guard Kevin Punter shoots as Marquette forward Juan Anderson, right and guard Jajuan Johnson try to block the shot in the Vols 67-59 loss Sunday afternoon.KNOXVILLE — Tennessee’s basketball players have spent the last week or so taking end-of-semester exams.
The on-court tests for the young Volunteers started well before that and will continue after the academic challenges wrap up Thursday.
With a visit from 15th-ranked Butler (8-1) on tap for Sunday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena, Tennessee will play a third game against a top-15 team in its opening seven games for the first time in 22 years.
“We’ve been challenged during the nonconference,” junior college transfer guard Kevin Punter said. “A lot of these teams, I don’t feel, aren’t being challenged in the nonconference, but we are, which is good for us. We’re young, so it’ll put us through the fire early. Why not?”
In Wade Houston’s fourth season at Tennessee in 1992-93, the Vols lost to sixth-ranked Seton Hall and 15th-ranked Syracuse and beat No. 8 Memphis State in the first seven games.
These Vols (3-3) began this season with a neutral-site loss to then-No. 15 Virginia Commonwealth last month and fell to then-No. 11 Kansas in the semifinals of the Orlando Classic two weeks ago.
Tennessee also played two other power-conference teams in Marquette and Kansas State.
“The last time I checked, our nonconference schedule, where it sits currently is like 42nd in America,” first-year Vols coach Donnie Tyndall said. “We’ve played a very challenging schedule. I knew that on the front end, that this schedule would probably be a little bit more than we’d hoped for in regard to having such a youthful, inexperienced team.
“But on the flip side, games against quality competition certainly make you grow up a little bit quicker, and it’ll help us when we head into league play.”
Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida and Missouri are the only SEC teams to have played multiple ranked opponents at this early stage of the season, and five teams in the league (Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Auburn) have yet to face a ranked team.
Tennessee head coach Donnie Tyndall watches his game against against Pikeville in Knoxville in this Nov. 3, 2014, photo.Kentucky’s top-ranked Wildcats own wins against Kansas and Texas. Florida lost to North Carolina and Kansas and to a Miami team that’s now ranked No. 20. Missouri, under first-year coach Kim Anderson, have blowout losses to Arizona and Oklahoma.
Ole Miss (vs. No. 23 Creighton) and LSU (at 16th-ranked West Virginia) own wins against ranked teams.
“There’s a fine line — a balancing act, if you will — of playing these type of teams that are great competition,” Tyndall said. “If you happen to lose, do your young players lose confidence? It’s a little bit of a balancing act, but certainly if you win one or two of them, it helps things a bunch.”
Tennessee rode its defense to a 65-64 win against Kansas State at home on Saturday and have a full week to prepare for the Bulldogs, who beat then-No. 5 North Carolina three weeks ago.
“It’s fun. You like the challenge,” Vols forward Derek Reese said. “You like playing good teams, like playing against players who are known and competitive. It’s nice playing against them.”
Tennessee’s hope is that the tough schedule will expedite its improvement and prepare it for SEC play.
“I don’t want to sound like we won the national championship here,” Tyndall said, “but for this team to beat a top-30, top-40 Kansas State team with eight newcomers … we’ve made a lot of progress in a short period of time.
“We certainly have a long way to go, but I think Josh Richardson is giving great leadership, and guys like Armani (Moore) and Derek Reese are finding ways to help the team in different ways. We’re just going to continue to improve, because we are so young, as the season goes along.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.