Tennessee's history against No. 1-ranked teams during the Rick Barnes era

Rick Barnes will lead Tennessee against a No. 1-ranked team for the fourth time when the sixth-ranked Vols (17-2, 4-2 SEC) face No. 1 Auburn (17-1, 5-0) Saturday night (8:30 Eastern Time, ESPN) at Neville Arena in Auburn.

Barnes is 2-1 against the No. 1 team during his 10 seasons at Tennessee, but has yet to face the top-ranked team in a true road game. The Vols beat No. 1 Alabama at Food City Center in 2023 and No. 1 Gonzaga in Phoenix in 2018 and lost to Kansas last season in the Maui Invitational. 

Tennessee is 6-6 over its last 12 games against AP No. 1 teams, dating back to March 1966, and is 4-4 over its last eight, dating back to February 2008. 

Tennessee has beat the No. 1-ranked team on the road twice in program history. An unranked Tennessee team beat No. 1 South Carolina 55-54 in December 1969 and Bruce Pearl led a No. 2-ranked Tennessee team to a 66-62 win at No. 1 Memphis in February 2008. 

Here’s a look back at the previous three games against No. 1-ranked teams during the Barnes era:

No. 1 Kansas 69, No. 7 Tennessee 60

Santiago Vescovi scored 21 points and Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey scored 13 each, but No. 7 Tennessee couldn’t handle No. 1 Kansas and Jayhawk center Hunter Dickinson in a 69-60 loss in the third-place game at last season’s Maui Invitational. 

Dickinson was dominant with 17 points and 20 rebounds while Kevin McCullar scored 14 and KJ Adams added 13. It was a rough back-to-back in Hawaii for the Vols, who had just lost to a No. 2-ranked Purdue team the day before facing No. 1 Kansas.

Vescovi’s 21 points included 5-for-11 shooting from the 3-point line and Gainey was 3-for-8 from deep. Knecht’s 13 points came on 4-for-17 shooting from the field. 

“Give Kansas credit, I thought they played extremely well,” Barnes said after the game. “I thought their key guys did exactly what you’d expect them to do night in and night out.”

No. 10 Tennessee 68, No. 1 Alabama 59

Zakai Zeigler and Santiago Vescovi scored 15 points each, Jonas Aidoo had 12 points and 11 rebounds and Uros Plavsic scored 10 points off the bench in No. 10 Tennessee’s 68-59 win over No. 1 Alabama on February 15, 2023 at Food City Center. 

Tennessee’s defense stifled Alabama’s high-powered offense. Five-star freshman Brandon Miller, the future No. 2 overall pick in the NBA Draft, finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds but Crimson Tide point guard Mark Sears had just two points on 1-for-6 shooting from the field.

The Vols scored 26 points off of 19 Alabama turnovers. 

“We turned the ball over too much tonight,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said after the loss. “(Tennessee’s) physicality. … They got into our guards and we couldn’t handle it.”

No. 7 Tennessee 76, No. 1 Gonzaga 73

Admiral Schofield scored a career-high 30 points and hit two go-ahead 3-pointers in the final 1:20 to lift No. 7 Tennessee to a 76-73 win over No. 1 Gonzaga in a thriller in the Jerry Colangelo Classic at Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix.

Both of Schofield’s threes were from NBA distance, with the first putting the Vols up 73-71 with 1:20 left and the second putting his team up for good at 76-73 with just 24 seconds left. 

Tennessee outscored Gonzaga 11-5 over the final 3:17 and didn’t allow the Zags to make a shot from the field over the final 4:16. Grant Williams finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds and Jordan Bowden had 11 points and four assists off the bench. 

It was the third in what would become a program-record 19 straight wins as Tennessee was on its way to a No. 1 ranking of its own during the 31-win season.