Tennessee to start SEC Tournament play Thursday afternoon in Nashville

Tennessee will open its SEC Tournament stay on Thursday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, after missing out on one of the tournament’s top four seeds in the bracket. The Vols lost 79-70 at Auburn on Saturday afternoon while Missouri beat Ole Miss at home, giving Mizzou the fourth seed and the double-bye into Friday’s quarterfinal round.

Both Tennessee and Missouri finished the regular season with matching 11-7 records in SEC play, with Mizzou having the head-to-head tiebreaker thanks to the 86-85 win at Thompson-Boling Arena on February 11.

Tennessee (22-9, 11-7 SEC) will unofficially be the No. 5 seed, playing at approximately 3 p.m. Eastern Time (TV: SEC Network) in the second game of the Thursday afternoon session, facing the winner of Wednesday’s game between the South Carolina, the No. 12 seed, and Ole Miss, the No. 13 seed.

The full SEC Tournament bracket will be released Saturday night, after the conclusion of the day’s games.

Tennessee misses out on top-four seed, double-bye in SEC Tournament

The Vols lost their fifth straight road game of the season at Auburn Saturday afternoon, losing 79-70 at Neville Arena. 

Santiago Vescovi scored 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting from the field, going 5-for-9 from the 3-point line to lead the Vols in the loss. Tyreke Key scored 13, returning after missing two games with a right ankle injury, and Josiah-Jordan James and Julian Phillips added 10 each.

Tennessee coach Rick Barnes was asked Thursday if playing an extra game in Nashville could help the Vols as they adjust to life without point guard Zakai Zeigler, who was lost for the season to a torn ACL in the win over Arkansas on Tuesday.

“You could look at it any way you want to look at it,” Barnes said. “If that’s the way you want to look at it. You know, obviously with Zakai being out, whoever we put in we get a little bit longer, with length. 

“But yeah, you could look at it (that way). And I think that’s how you have to look at it. Whatever falls your way, you’ve got to look at it like, hey, this is the way it’s supposed to be and we’ve got to make the most of it.”

Tennessee entered Saturday with possibilities of being anything from the No. 3 seed to the No. 6 seed in the bracket. 

The last four teams in the regular-season standings open the tournament on Wednesday night, then the 5-10 seeds play Thursday. The top-four teams in the standings receive a double-bye into the quarterfinal round on Friday.

Tennessee started the day fourth in the standings and could’ve bumped up to a No. 3 with a win at Auburn and a Kentucky loss at Arkansas. Tennessee’s loss at Auburn paired Missouri’s win moved the Vols out of the top four.

Up Next: SEC Tournament, March 8-13, Bridgestone Arena, Nashville

The Vols won the SEC Tournament at Amalie Arena in Tampa last March, the program’s first conference tournament title since 1979. Tennessee went through Mississippi State, Kentucky and Texas A&M over the course of three days on the way to cutting down the nets.

Tennessee played in back-to-back SEC Tournament championship games in 2018 and 2019, losing to Kentucky in St. Louis and then to Auburn in Nashville. The Vols lost in the semifinal round against Alabama in 2021.

Tennessee started 4-0 in SEC play, before Kentucky dented the record with a 63-56 win at Thompson-Boling Arena on January 14. The Vols bounced back with three straight league wins and an 82-71 win over Texas on January 28 in the Big 12-SEC Challenge, jumping up to No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25.

Since then, though, Tennessee has dropped four of the final 10 games of the regular season. It started at Florida on February 1, 67-54, and continued with back-to-back buzzer-beating losses against Vanderbilt on February 8 and Missouri on February 11.

The Vols dropped back-to-back games at Kentucky and Texas A&M, then beat South Carolina and Arkansas before the loss Saturday at Auburn.