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Three of four ESPN college basketball insiders pick Tennessee to make it to the Final Four

IMG_3593by:Grant Ramey•11/07/23•

GrantRamey

Zakai Zeigler
Mar 13, 2022; Tampa, FL, USA; Tennessee Volunteers guard Zakai Zeigler (5) cuts down the net after defeating the Texas A&M Aggies at Amalie Arena.

It’s safe to say ESPN’s group of college basketball analysts are believers in Tennessee basketball this season. Three of four analysts on Monday picked the Vols as a Final Four team and Rick Barnes twice was the pick for national coach of the year.

ESPN’s John Gasaway, Joe Lunardi, Jeff Borzello and Myron Medcalf made their picks and projections Monday morning, on the first day of the new college basketball season. Borzello, Gasaway and Lunardi had the Vols in their Final Four and Borzello and Lunardi picked Barnes as their projected Coach of the Year winner.

Borzello’s Final Four picks were Tennessee, Kanas, Michigan State and Baylor while Lunardi had Tennessee. Duke, Purdue and Kansas. Gasaway’s four were Kansas, Purdue, Tennessee and Creighton.

Kansas was the national champion pick for all three. Medcalf’s Final Four was Houston, Kansas, Purdue and Michigan State, with Houston as his national title team.

Lunardi also picked Tennessee in the group’s “most interesting teams” category.

“Tennessee belongs in the best-golfer-never-to-win-a-major category,” Lunardi wrote. “The Vols might be the biggest athletic department never to reach a Final Four. In men’s basketball that is. 

“Rick Barnes has been consistently excellent since arriving in Knoxville, but unable to get past the Sweet 16, despite multiple top-10 teams on KenPom. This could (should?) be the year that changes.”

Lunardi’s latest ESPN Bracketology update has Tennessee as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, opening in Charlotte, N.C., against No. 15 Wright State in the Midwest Region. 

ESPN Bet has Tennessee currently with the sixth-best odds to win the national championship at +2000. The Vols are behind only Kansas (+1000), Purdue (+1200), Duke (+1200), Michigan State (+1200) and Kentucky (+1800).

Tennessee, ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25, was picked to win the SEC regular-season championship in the media poll last moth, picked ahead of Texas A&M, Arkansas and Kentucky, respectively.

The Vols went to No. 4 Michigan State on October 29 and won 89-88 in a charity exhibition game at the Breslin Center in East Lansing. They went through Duke last March, beating the Blue Devils in the second round to advance to the Sweet 16, before losing to Final Four-bound Florida Atlantic at Madison Square Garden.

This season Tennessee returns a pair of fifth-year seniors in guard Santiago Vescovi and wing/forward Josiah-Jordan James, along with junior point guard Zakai Zeigler, junior wing Jahmai Mashack, junior center Jonas Aidoo and sophomore forward Tobe Awaka.

The Vols also added redshirt freshmen Freddie Dilione V (guard) and DJ Jefferson (wing) to the bench and added impact players out of the portal in Northern Colorado wing Dalton Knecht and USC Upstate guard Jordan Gainey.

Knecht and Gainey have starred early on, combining for 48 points at Michigan State, 26 points in an exhibition win over Lenoir-Rhyne and 31 in the season-opening win over Tennessee Tech on Monday.

Barnes has led Tennessee to 52 wins over the last two seasons — he set a program record for wins in back-to-back years with 57 in 2017-18 and 2018-19 — and has taken the Vols to the NCAA Tournament five straight times.

Tennessee, which has been to the Elite Eight only once in program history, a 70-69 loss to Michigan State in 2010, went to the Sweet 16 last March, lost to Michigan in the second round in 2022 and lost to Oregon State in the first round in 2021. The Vols went to the Sweet 16 in 2019, losing to Purdue in overtime, and were upset by Final Four-bond Loyola Chicago in the second round in 2018. 

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