They are entering the SEC Tournament at 13-18, on a four-game losing streak, with their best player gone for the year, and with their second-best player slowly returning to health.
How the heck are the Vols supposed to win this thing and make a run for the NCAA Tournament in Rick Barnes’s first year as head coach? The simple fact is they can’t…unless they get a heck of a lot of luck.
Tennessee is undersized and not very deep, which is a terrible combination for this tournament. Add in the fact that senior Kevin Punter Jr., their All-SEC guard, is gone for the year and can’t help them, and it is almost impossible to see how the rest of the players, even with the talent that they have, can lead the Vols to victory in Rick Barnes’s tempo-based system.