Tennessee Basketball is on an off week right now as the team looks to put the pieces together to break out of a three-game losing slump against a Top 11 opponent next week. The Vols began the season 7-0, including wins over Rutgers and Houston in the Players Era Festival, but has since lost three straight. Tennessee fell to Kansas in the third-place game of the festival, lost in a true road game to Syracuse in the ACC/SEC Challenge, and fell to Illinois in Music City Madness this past weekend.
If it were up to Rick Barnes, though, the Vols would be right back out there on the court.
“I’d rather be playing,” Barnes said after the Illinois game.
The Vols are off this week but will return to action next Tuesday night in a home game against No. 11 Louisville in Knoxville. It’ll be Tennessee’s first game in the Food City Center since Nov. 20, and maybe some home cooking will do the trick to break the Vols out of their slump.
Tennessee’s losing skid has the Vols sliding in Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology report for ESPN. Lunardi currently has Tennessee tabbed as the 5-seed in the Midwest Region, with a first-round matchup against 12-seed Utah Valley in San Diego, CA. Tennessee’s projected second-round game would come against either 4-seed Kansas or 13-seed East Tennessee State.
Other notable teams in Lunardi’s projected Midwest Region include 1-seed Michigan, 2-seed Gonzaga, 3-seed Alabama, 6-seed Virginia, 7-seed Nebraska, and 8-seed Clemson.
More From RTI: Tennessee Basketball’s Leadership Is Being Tested, It’s Not Where ‘It Needs To Be’
Lunardi’s Dec. 9 Bracketology report includes eight SEC teams, including 3-seed Alabama and 5-seed Tennessee from the Midwest, 6-seed Auburn and 9-seed Kentucky from the South, 3-seed Vanderbilt and 8-seed Georgia from the East, and 5-seed Florida and 6-seed Arkansas from the West. The Missouri Tigers are listed as one of the first four teams out, and the Oklahoma Sooners are listed as one of the next four teams out.
Tennessee only has three games left until the start of the SEC season. It’ll host all three games in Knoxville, taking on No. 11 Louisville on Dec. 16, Gardner Webb on Dec. 21, and South Carolina State on Dec. 30. The Vols will then travel to Fayetteville to take on John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks for the SEC opener on Saturday, Jan. 3.
The big roster news that unfolded this week was that Tennessee forward Cade Phillips is set to have season-ending surgery on his left shoulder. He’s worn a long sleeve/brace on the shoulder through the first 10 games this season, but will need to address the injury with surgery moving forward. It’s a big hit to Tennessee’s roster, but the Vols do have depth at the forward position.
For more on how Phillips’ season-ending surgery will impact the Tennessee roster, click here.
