For just the sixth time since March Madness expanded to at least 64 teams, Tennessee basketball will be playing in a regional semifinal Thursday. The No. 2 seed Vols will be looking to hold off the No. 3 seed Purdue Boilermakers in Louisville in hopes of advancing to the Elite Eight.
Although Purdue is not the most ideal opponent for Rick Barnes’s team, things could have been worse. The Villanova Wildcats would have actually been a much tougher matchup simply because they could afford to run their tempo, which the Vols have struggled with, and lack of depth wouldn’t have hit after a four-day rest.