ESPN’s Joe Lunardi pours cold water over Vols’ chances at a program first immediately after Tennessee’s win over Auburn
The Tennessee Vols basketball team picked up a gigantic win on Saturday afternoon in Nashville, toppling the top-seeded (and likely #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament) Auburn Tigers 70-65 in the day’s first SEC Tournament semifinal.
Apparently that was not enough to move the needle one bit for ESPN “bracketologist” Joe Lunardi, who wasted no time in downplaying the importance of the win.
Lunardi’s latest projection has put Tennessee in a box that they can’t seem to get out of to reach the program’s first-ever one seed. He says that Auburn is a lock for the top overall seed regardless.
More importantly, he says the Florida-Alabama winner locks up a fourth and final one seed. Ignoring the fact that, y’know, that team plays Tennessee on Sunday, who should also be right there in the conversation. Duke and Houston should be locks for their current one seed positions, particularly if they finish of their conference tourneys as champions.
That’s a massive about face for Lunardi from just a few days ago, when Lunardi said that whoever went the furthest in the tournament among Tennessee-Florida-Alabama would be in the driver’s seat for the final one seed. And there’s been no material change in any team’s resume from then until now, which makes the sudden flip-flop even more inexplicable.
Tennessee could really force the NCAA committee’s hand on Sunday if they can defeat the Florida-Alabama winner to claim the tournament crown. The Vols were already on the two/one seed cut line coming into the tournament. The SEC has never been better either, with the possibility of 14 teams making the big dance and four teams with arguable 1 seed resumes.
Coming out on top of THAT group already with an argument for a one seed coming in and NOT getting a one seed on Selection Sunday? On one hand, there would be no reason for any team not projected as a one seed at the end of the regular season to play a single minute of conference tournament play. You want to talk about college football bowl games being meaningless? This would be right on par with that.
That all being said, as far as Sunday goes, SEC basketball tournament championships don’t grow on trees for this program and winning one should still be considered a pretty special thing.
Even if some out there apparently don’t believe it’s worth a hill of beans anymore.
