During the 2018-19 basketball season, Tennessee won 23 of its first 24 games and spent a program-record four consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the Associated Press poll.
The Volunteers were truly elite two years ago, spending the entire season as a top-10 team and winning 31 games before enduring an overtime loss to Purdue in the NCAA tournament's Sweet 16. This season's team was showing similar promise by racing to a 7-0 start, but then came Saturday night's stunning 71-63 setback against Alabama inside Thompson-Boiling Arena, when the Crimson Tide outscored the Vols 30-12 from 3-point range.
Will that defeat wind up serving as a needed jolt for another stellar season, or will it be the first of several indications that this is a solid squad but nothing special?
"This was definitely a humbling experience for us, and I definitely think it will be a lesson for us," sophomore guard Josiah-Jordan James said minutes after Tennessee fell to 7-1 and 1-1 in Southeastern Conference play. "We definitely would have wanted the picture-perfect season and gone undefeated and all that, but this just shows we have to get better. This is a lesson we can either learn from or let it kill us, and we're definitely going to learn from it.
"We've got the guys in the locker room to do that."
The Vols dropped from No. 7 to No. 9 in the latest AP poll released Monday, but they checked in at No. 3 behind Gonzaga and Baylor in the inaugural NET rankings, the primary evaluating measure used by the NCAA tournament selection committee. Tennessee will try to get back on track Wednesday night against visiting Arkansas, with Vols coach Rick Barnes admitting that a lineup change is possible.
To this point, Tennessee has been the only program nationally to use a left-handed starting five of James, Victor Bailey Jr., Santiago Vescovi, John Fulkerson and Yves Pons.
Fulkerson and Pons were complementary players on the 31-6 team two years ago that was headed by Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams, but each senior failed to thrive against the Crimson Tide. Pons was hampered by foul trouble but still managed five blocked shots, while Fulkerson struggled throughout and was a grisly 3-of-8 at the free-throw line.
"These are the types of games you play in the SEC," Pons said. "Not every game is going to be easy, and everybody is going to come out ready. This is going to be good for us.
"We'll learn from it, and we'll get better from it."
The Vols played the entire second half Saturday without five-star freshman guard Jaden Springer, who rolled his ankle and has been listed day-to-day. The Razorbacks will enter Thompson-Boling Arena with a 9-1 record, having also suffered their first lost Saturday, when they fell at home to Missouri 81-68.
That's the same Mizzou that Tennessee drubbed 73-53 last Wednesday in Columbia, though it's unlikely any of the Vols will expect the transitive property to kick in Wednesday and automatically produce a 33-point triumph.
"If our guys are overconfident, it is over with now," Barnes said.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.