Unless the starting point is an NCAA tournament First Four game, winning the national championship in the men’s basketball 68-team extravaganza requires six consecutive victories.
Tennessee hasn’t won more than two straight games in more than a month, which is reflected by a 5-5 record since the Volunteers raced out to a 10-1 start. The latest example of erratic play from the preseason Southeastern Conference favorites transpired inside Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday afternoon, when they followed Wednesday’s 93-73 thumping of South Carolina with a lackluster 70-55 loss to Kentucky.
“I feel like once we get a taste of winning, we’ve kind of gotten a bit lackadaisical and felt on top,” Tennessee freshman guard Keon Johnson said. “I feel that, as a group, once we start winning and getting on a roll, we’ve got to keep it going until the end. Maybe that’s March, or maybe that’s April, but we just have to keep it going consistently.”
There has been nothing consistent about Tennessee since its humiliating 75-49 defeat at Florida on Jan. 19, when the Vols were No. 6 in The Associated Press poll and No. 3 in the NET rankings. A resounding 80-61 triumph over Kansas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge was followed by a drab 52-50 loss at Ole Miss, and consecutive high-octane performances at Kentucky and against Georgia were followed by a lopsided loss at LSU.
Vols sixth-year coach Rick Barnes doesn’t believe his players have an inability to handle adversity as much as an inability to build off the good times.