The Tennessee Volunteers making the NCAA basketball tournament is nothing new.
Not knowing who they’ll play first is very different.
Tennessee was selected Sunday night as the No. 6 seed in the Midwest Region and will begin play Friday at approximately 4:25 p.m. in Philadelphia. The Vols will face the winner of Wednesday’s First Four game between Miami University and SMU, which is a pairing of 11 seeds, with that matchup tipping at 9:15 p.m. in Dayton, Ohio.
“It’s kind of what we just did getting ready for the SEC tournament,” Tennessee 11th-year coach Rick Barnes said Sunday in a press conference. “We’ll obviously get into both teams tonight and by tomorrow will have something on both teams. We’ll break both teams down, and tomorrow will be a good work day for us.
“We’ll implement some traits they might have and go from there.”
This will be the 30th NCAA tournament for Barnes as a head coach, matching former Kansas and North Carolina coach Roy Williams for the third-most berths in Division I men’s basketball history. Only former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski (36) and former Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim (35) have more.
The Vols, who fell to 22-11 with Friday’s 75-68 loss to Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference tournament quarterfinals, have earned invitations to eight staged NCAA tournaments in a row. The 2020 tourney was canceled days before “Selection Sunday” due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
“Everybody was excited,” Tennessee sophomore guard Bishop Boswell said when asked about the team’s reaction. “Any time you get to play in March Madness, something you grew up watching, it’s a surreal feeling.”
Miami University won the Mid-American Conference regular-season title with an 18-0 league mark and was 31-0 overall entering the MAC tournament, where the RedHawks were bounced by UMass in the quarterfinals. The RedHawks have the lowest metrics of any at-large team in the 68-team field despite being the last D-I team to lose this season.
“I just think any time you win 30 games, it speaks volumes about you,” Barnes said. “You can just get to eight, nine or 10 games into a season, and you can get a bull’s-eye on your back. Every night you go out, somebody is trying to knock you off, so that tells you they’ve been a mentally tough team.
“They’re certainly a well-coached team, because I don’t care what league you play in, getting 30 wins speaks volumes to your character and your work ethic and your mental toughness.”
The Vols last played Miami University in 1999 and last played SMU in 2001. The Mustangs are 20-13 overall, went 8-10 in Atlantic Coast Conference play, and split their four games against SEC foes, defeating both Mississippi State and Texas A&M in overtime and losing by double digits to LSU and Vanderbilt.
SMU senior guard B.J. Edwards played at Knoxville Catholic and spent his freshman season in 2022-23 with the Vols, playing in 14 games and averaging 1.2 points. Knowing that Zakai Zeigler would be at Tennessee for two more seasons, Edwards transferred to Dallas, where he has played the past three years, averaging 12.7 points this season.
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Tennessee is a 6 seed for the first time since 2010, when Bruce Pearl’s Vols defeated 11th-seeded San Diego State, 14th-seeded Ohio and second-seeded Ohio State on their way to the program’s first appearance in the Elite Eight. That was the last year of the 64-team field, with the First Four concept introduced in 2011.
The Vols are one of 10 SEC teams in this year’s NCAA tournament and one of four somehow shoehorned into the Midwest Region. Alabama is the 4 seed in the Midwest, while Kentucky is the 7 and Georgia the 8.
There are no SEC teams in the East Region.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.