Tennessee Basketball’s Checker FCC game against Auburn this month is officially sold out, according to a post from UTSports on Thursday. The Volunteers will host the Tigers at 8:30 p.m. ET in front of a jam-packed crowd in the Food City Center on Saturday, Jan. 31, in Knoxville, TN.
Tennessee Athletics states that this is the fourth sellout for the Vols so far this season, joining past matchups against Louisville (Dec. 16) and Kentucky (Jan. 17) and a future matchup against Alabama (Feb. 28). When counting the sold-out exhibition game against Duke before the season, it steps up to the fifth sellout game of the year.
The Vols’ game against the Tigers will be their next home game on the schedule after a brief SEC road trip. Tennessee will take on Alabama in Tuscaloosa this Saturday night before heading to Athens to take on the Georgia Bulldogs next Tuesday night. The Vols will then return home to take on the Tigers in a return to the Food City Center.
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Tennessee is 12-6 overall and 2-3 in SEC play so far this season. The Vols have alternated their wins and losses in conference play so far, but last weekend’s loss to Kentucky at the Food City Center snapped a perfect 10-0 home start for UT this season. Tennessee will want to avenge that loss in front of its home fans against the Tigers, but they’ll need to take care of business on the road first.
The tricky part of that, aside from facing two Top 25 rivals in a four-day stretch, is that Tennessee has yet to win a true road game this season. The Vols are 0-3 on the road with losses at Syracuse, Arkansas, and Florida, with an average loss margin of 12.3 points. The 24-point loss at Florida skews that a bit, but it happened nonetheless.
Following Tennessee’s blown-lead loss to Kentucky last weekend, the Vols dropped out of the AP Poll for the first time in 90 weeks. Tennessee will now head to Alabama this weekend as an unranked team. Rick Barnes has famously never cared about rankings, for both his program and the opponent, but perhaps the combination of the loss and the fall is a wake-up call for Tennessee’s players. The team has had an extended stretch to reflect and regroup with a midweek bye this week.
No. 17 Alabama will host Tennessee at 8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for live coverage of the game from Coleman Coliseum.
