Rick Barnes explains Tennessee's mindset entering the SEC Tournament

There’s only one way Rick Barnes wants his Tennessee basketball to approach games from here on out. With the regular season in the rearview mirror, all that remains in front of the Vols are championship games.

One after the next after the next.

“I think they do know that every game has to be championship game,” Barnes said before practice Tuesday at Thompson-Boling Arena. “It has to be. And the effort and the details and getting ready for a mindset that that’s what it is, because a week from now, it is real.

“You can either have two or 10 games. But to do that you have to have everybody.”

Tennessee maximized its stay at the SEC Tournament a year ago, winning three games in three days to make a run to the conference tournament championship, winning it for the first time since 1979.

After entering as the No. 2 seed, the Vols beat Mississippi State in the quarterfinal round, 72-59, then beat Kentucky in the semifinals, 69-62. The title game started with Tennessee scoring 14 straight points against Texas A&M and ended with a 65-50 win over the Aggies.

“It was fun for sure,” senior guard Santiago Vescovi said. “It was a great run. We worked together. It was a team that was having fun. I remember Tampa was beautiful. It was sunny weather. It was pretty warm. It was a really, really great trip overall.”

No. 17 Tennessee (22-9, 11-7 SEC), the tournament’s No. 5 seed this time around, will face either No. 12 South Carolina or No. 13 Ole Miss on Thursday afternoon (3:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network) at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. 

Tennessee went 3-0 against Ole Miss, South Carolina in regular season

Alabama is the No. 1 overall seed and Missouri is the No. 4 on Tennessee’s side. The Crimson Tide will face either No. 8 Florida or No. 9 Mississippi State in Friday afternoon’s 1 p.m. Eastern Time game on ESPN. Should Tennessee advance past South Carolina or Ole Miss, the Vols will face No. 4 Missouri at roughly 3:30 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN.

Tennessee opened SEC play on December 28 with a 63-59 at Ole Miss. The Vols in two games against South Carolina won by a combined 83 points, beating the Gamecocks 85-42 at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia on January 7 and 85-45 at Thompson-Boling Arena on February 25.

Tennessee lost to Missouri 86-85 in Knoxville on February 11. The Vols trailed by 17 points with 17 minutes left in the game, rallied to erase the deficit and build as much as a six-point lead, but lost when DeAndre Gholston hit a long, running desperation 3-pointer as time expired. 

What Tennessee to find to stay alive from here is what the Vols have been looking for all season — consistency.

“We can’t be talking about inconsistencies,” Barnes said. “We can’t. This is a new start to the third part of the season that you go into and it’s time for everybody to where we can’t be talking about inconsistencies or not understanding roles, whatever. It’s time everybody does exactly what this team needs them to do to help us move on.”

Up Next: SEC Tournament, March 8-12, Bridgestone Arena, Nashville

Tennessee has played in three SEC Tournament championship games under Barnes, losing against Kentucky in St. Louis in 2018 and Auburn in Nashville in 2019. The Vols beat Texas A&M in Tampa last March to win the conference tournament for the first time since 1979.

Tennessee lost in the semifinal round against Alabama in 2021, after beating Florida in the quarterfinal round, and lost to Georgia in its first game in the tournament in 2017. The Vols were a No. 12 seed in 2016, the first season under Barnes, and beat No. 13 Auburn (97-59) and No. 5 Vanderbilt (67-65) before losing to No. 4 LSU, 84-75.

Tennessee won’t go into this SEC Tournament looking past either South Carolina or Ole Miss. If the Vols get to Missouri on Friday, it will be the same mindset.

“I think the main thing last time we were in Tampa was we had pretty much we had a championship game every single time we played,” Vescovi said. “We really didn’t get ahead our ourselves and look forward. We were just playing one game at a time.

“I think if we want to win it and do it again, we have to have the same mindset. We have to play one more game than we did last year. I think it is going to help us get in more rhythm going into the (NCAA) Tournament.”