Basketball Vols crack AP Top 25
KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee men’s basketball team cracked the Associated Press Top 25 on Monday for the first time since the Bruce Pearl coaching era.
The Volunteers (6-1) are ranked 24th. They beat Mercer at home last week and defeated Georgia Tech on the road Sunday to follow up on a 2-1 performance in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.
Tennessee was picked 13th out of 14 teams in the Southeastern Conference in a preseason poll of media that cover the league but are one of just four SEC teams currently ranked in the AP poll.
The Vols last were ranked in the AP poll on Dec. 20, 2010, according to Sports Reference archives. That was Pearl’s final year as coach.
Pearl’s successor, Cuonzo Martin, took Tennessee to the round of 16 in the 2014 NCAA tournament, but the Vols were not included in the season’s final AP poll, although they were ranked 23rd in the final USA Today coaches’ poll that year.
Tennessee failed to make the NCAA tournament in the 2014-15 season, which was Donnie Tyndall’s lone season as coach, and now Rick Barnes is in his third season leading the program.
Barnes appears to have his strongest team yet after rebuilding the roster through a 15-19 season in 2015-16 and a 16-16 campaign last year.
“It’s early still,” Barnes said after his team’s 77-70 win over Georgia Tech. “We’ve played some quality teams. We’ve got a long way to go. Our guys have worked hard. They deserve to have some things happen.”
Tennessee hosts Lipscomb on Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena and then gets eight days off before welcoming No. 11 North Carolina on Dec. 17.
The Vols have three wins against power conference opponents to this point — all coming away from home. Tennessee beat Purdue in the opening game of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas last month. The Boilermakers rebounded from a 1-2 showing in that tournament with quality wins over Louisville, Maryland and Northwestern and were ranked 21st in this week’s AP poll.
Tennessee also has wins over RPI top 100 teams North Carolina State and Georgia Tech on its early-season resume.