NCAA Tournament March Madness Bubble Watch: Tennessee

NCAA Tournament March Madness

#15 Tennessee

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Projected seed: 8

Tennessee’s resume lives and dies on a couple of big neutral-site wins over Houston and Rutgers that supply the kind of signature victories committees covet while a neutral loss to Kansas and a road setback at Syracuse serve as the clear blemishes holding the profile back. Those quality results sit atop a pile of low-end nonconference blowouts that won’t move the needle, so the Volunteers’ ability to pile up true road and neutral wins will determine how this looks in Selection Committee eyes. The calendar still hands them high-leverage opportunities — a neutral game against Illinois and a home test with Louisville plus a string of difficult road trips to Arkansas, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky — and how they fare in those spots will either turn those signature neutral wins into a durable résumé or leave the team dependent on a strong showing in the conference tournament.

Date	Opponent	Ranking	Outcome
11/3	Mercer	172	W76-61
11/8	N Kentucky	179	W95-56
11/12	North Florida	334	W99-66
11/17	Rice	217	W91-66
11/20	Tennessee St	245	W89-60
11/24	(N)Rutgers	126	W85-60
11/25	(N)Houston	8	W76-73
11/26	(N)Kansas	18	L81-76
12/2	@Syracuse	65	L62-60
12/6	(N)Illinois	17	51%
12/16	Louisville	14	59%
12/21	Gardner Webb	359	100%
12/30	S Carolina St	353	100%
1/3	@Arkansas	31	52%
1/6	Texas	55	83%
1/10	@Florida	13	36%
1/13	Texas A&M	45	79%
1/17	Kentucky	19	69%
1/24	@Alabama	12	36%
1/27	@Georgia	22	49%
1/31	Auburn	20	69%
2/3	Mississippi	51	82%
2/7	@Kentucky	19	47%
2/11	@Mississippi St	78	73%
2/14	LSU	25	71%
2/17	Oklahoma	46	80%
2/18	Oklahoma	46	80%
2/21	@Vanderbilt	6	31%
2/24	@Missouri	37	55%
2/28	Alabama	12	58%
3/3	@South Carolina	92	78%
3/7	Vanderbilt	6	52%