Where Tennessee basketball is ranked in the first NET ratings of the new season
The first NET rankings of the new college basketball season were released Monday morning, with Tennessee coming in at No. 4 after starting the season with seven wins over its first eight games.
The Vols have one Quad 1 win, are 2-1 in three Quad 2 games, 1-0 in Quad 3 and 3-0 in Quad 4. The NET metric, which replaced the RPI, is used by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee to seed the 68-team field in March.
Tennessee’s best win of the season so far is over No. 18 Kansas, a 64-50 win in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game on November 25 in the Bahamas. The other six wins so far this season came against No. 63 Butler, No. 72 Florida Gulf Coast, No. 146 Southern Cal, No. 197 Alcorn State, No. 310 Tennessee Tech and No. 355 McNeese State.
The lone loss so far came against No. 64 Colorado at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
Vols are highest-ranked SEC team in new NET rankings
The Vols are the highest-rated SEC team in the NET ratings, coming in ahead of No. 5 Mississippi State, No. 8 Alabama, No. 21 Auburn, No. 25 Arkansas, No. 34 Missouri and No. 42 Kentucky.
Ole Miss, Tennessee’s SEC opener on December 28, is No. 66, ahead of No. 69 Florida, No. 83 LSU, No. 119 Vanderbilt, No. 120 Texas A&M, No. 176 Georgia and No. 294 South Carolina.
Tennessee (7-1), coming off a 94-40 win over Alcorn State on Sunday in Knoxville, hosts Eastern Kentucky (2-4) on Wednesday (7 p.m. Eastern Time; TV: SEC Network) before playing No. 6 Maryland (8-0) on Sunday in New York. The Vols play at No. 26 Arizona (7-1) on December 17 in the first true road game of the season.
In January the Vols will play No. 12 Texas in the Big 12-SEC Challenge at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Tennessee got senior wing Josiah-Jordan James back on Sunday from the knee soreness that caused him to miss the previous four games. He played 14 minutes off the bench, scoring four points to go with three assists and two rebounds.
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Senior guard Santiago Vescovi missed the game with a sprained left, shooting shoulder, an injury suffered late in the 76-40 win over McNeese State on Wednesday.
Up Next: Tennessee vs. Eastern Kentucky, Wednesday, 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network
Without Vescovi on Sunday, got a career-high 20 points from Olivier Nkamhoua, who added six assists and four rebounds. Five-star freshman wing Julian Phillips scored 14 of his 18 points in the first half and Zakai Zeigler scored 10 points off the bench.
Sophomore wing Jahmai Mashack had a career-high 13 points and added seven rebounds and four steals in his first career start, taking Vescovi’s place in the lineup. Uros Plavsic had 12 points and four rebounds.
Tennessee had 27 assists on 33 field goals, shot 52.4 percent from the field and scored 50 points in the paint. The Vols scored 26 points off 22 Alcorn State turnovers.
Barnes said it was his team’s most complete game of the season.
“When you look at it, the fact that we assisted 27 on 33 baskets,” he said. “That’s how we’re at our best. And we were able to turn some turnovers into some baskets, obviously, that makes it easier in some ways. But that was a good defensive effort. Overall I would tell you that it was our most complete game on both ends in terms of concentration.”
