Tennessee basketball was riding high after acing its first test of the season and defeating Houston 76-73 just over two weeks ago in Las Vegas. Since then, things have been dicey for Tennessee. The Vols have lost three straight gams since and are looking for answers with a week off.
Rick Barnes’ team lost to Kansas 81-76 to wrap up play in Las Vegas a day after the win over Houston. Tennessee played its worst game of the season in a 62-60 loss at Syracuse in the ACC-SEC Challenge and then played poorly down the stretch in a 75-62 loss against Illinois on Saturday night in Nashville.
The three straight losses, especially this early in the season, are undoubtedly a cause for concern for Tennessee. But they don’t have to look too far in the rearview for positivity.
Tennessee lost three straight games early in the season two years ago. The Vols fell to Purdue and Kansas in the 2023 Maui Invitational before heading east to Chapel Hill and losing to North Carolina in the ACC-SEC Challenge in their next game.
Those three straight losses dropped that Tennessee team to 4-3 early in the season. The Vols proceeded to win seven straight games, 11 of their next 12 games and 20 of their next 23 games. Tennessee won the SEC Regular-Season Championship that season, earned a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament and made a run to the Elite Eight for just the second time in program history.
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That team had something this Tennessee team doesn’t— Dalton Knecht. The Vols don’t have a National Player of the Year candidate on this team or someone who can consistently take over games the way Knecht did that season.
But Nate Ament is not playing near his potential right now. Ament will almost certainly continue to get better over the course of the season, and Tennessee should become a better team as the five-star freshman starts performing better.
Tennessee is off this entire week before returning to the court on Tuesday night against No. 11 Louisville in Knoxville. If the Vols get past Louisville and take care of Gardner-Webb and South Carolina State then they’ll enter SEC play 10-3.
The Vols will look back at the Syracuse game as a bad loss that they let get away. But they’ll also have two high-level wins with their two other losses coming against top 20 teams on a neutral floor. Tennessee will not be far off track entering conference play.
The college basketball season is a long one. Tennessee has a number of issues that they must clean up. But the past tells us that the Vols can clean up those issues and still have a very successful season.
