Tennessee basketball announces plans to 'checker' Thompson-Boling Arena against Texas A&M
Tennessee basketball on Wednesday announced plans for a “Checker Game” Saturday night when the Vols host Texas A&M inside a sold-out Thompson-Boling Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN.
Fans can find their designated color by visiting utsports.com/checker.
Tennessee (20-6, 10-3 SEC) on Tuesday rallied from down seven points in the second half to beat Missouri 72-67 at Mizzou Arena in Columbia. Texas A&M (15-11, 6-7) beat the Vols 85-69 on February 10 at Reed Arena in College Station but has lost three games since then, losing at Vanderbilt, at Alabama and at home against Arkansas.
The Texas A&M game has been sold out since January. Tennessee has already set a new single-season program record for sellout crowds at Thompson-Boling with eight. Games against Illinois, Ole Miss, Alabama, LSU and Vanderbilt had capacity crowds of 21,678 or more — the announced crowd for the Ole Miss game on January 6 was 21,932 — and the Auburn and Kentucky games are also sold out.
The Vols host Auburn next Wednesday and Kentucky comes to Knoxville on March 9 for the regular-season finale on Senior Day at Thompson-Boling Arena.
Tennessee sold-out season tickets at Thompson-Boling Arena this season
Tennessee announced in November that the Vols had officially sold out the allotment of 14,500 season tickets at Thompson-Boling Arena this season.
It’s the seventh consecutive full-capacity season with more than 13,000 season tickets sold for men’s basketball. Last season the Vols averaged 18,781 fans at home games, which ranked fifth nationally. There were only eight schools that averaged more than 15,100 fans at home games.
Tennessee on Monday moved back into the top five in both polls, moving up three spots in the Associated Press Top 25 and four spots in the USA Today Coaches Poll.
Vols remain Joe Lunardi’s No. 5 overall seed in NCAA Tournament Bracketology
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi moved the Vols up to the No. 5 overall seed in his NCAA Tournament projection Monday night, moving them from the Midwest Region to the South, as the No. 2 seed behind No. 1-seed Houston. Creighton was the No. 3 seed and San Diego State was the No. 4 seed.
Lunardi also wrote on Tuesday that Tennessee wouldn’t be moving up to a No. 1 seed anytime soon due to “a real gap between the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.”
The Vols are No. 6 in the NET with a 5-5 record n Quad 1 games, a 5-1 record in Quad 2 games and 5-0 records in both Quad 3 and Quad 4 games.
Tennessee has four Quad 1 games currently left on schedule, all in the final two weeks of the regular season — Auburn (February 28), at Alabama (March 2), at South Carolina (March 6) and Kentucky (March 9).
