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Rick Barnes on the strength of the SEC: 'It's ridiculous, to be honest with you'

Barkley-Truaxby: Barkley Truax02/14/25BarkleyTruax
Rick Barnes, Tennessee Basketball | Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images
(Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images) Jan 7, 2025; Gainesville, Florida, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes looks on against the Florida Gators during the first half at Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center.

Tennessee dropped to 7-5 in SEC play after losing to Kentucky on the road on Tuesday. Still, they entered the week as the No. 5 team in the current AP Top 25 poll.

That speaks to the strength of the conference, according to Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes. With nine of its 16 teams appearing in this week’s AP Top 25 poll, and seven of them have three or more losses in conference play.

Despite the loss to the Wildcats, Barnes enters every game a strong belief that his group will come out victorious.

“We didn’t finish the game well,” Barnes said postgame. “And give them credit for that. But I don’t know how everybody else thinks, I mean, we go on a court, we expect to win. But we know, like you said, it’s the best league in the country, maybe ever. I mean, it’s ridiculous, to be honest with you.

“But the good thing about it, everything is a Quad 1 game. And it helps you, obviously, if you win. And if you don’t, it probably doesn’t hurt you as badly as you can in some leagues when you lose games. But it’s an incredible league and I’m proud of it. Ten years ago it was awful. And where we are today is amazing and I think it’s a compliment to a lot of different people to get it to this point. And I don’t see it going backwards too much either.”

Currently, 14 teams in the SEC can be considered a Quad 1 opponent. Excluding South Carolina and LSU, every team in the conference is ranked within the Top 50 in the current NET rankings. Tennessee ranks No. 5 in the overall rankings, good for third-best in the SEC behind Auburn (No. 1) and Florida (4).

Whether it’s a positive or negative for the Volunteeres will depend on perspective, but they’re set to play both South Carolina and LSU during the final six-game stretch of the regular season. That means they have just four more opportunities to help bolster their SEC and NCAA Tournament seedings.

If the season ended today, Tennessee would be the 7-seed in the SEC Tournament. However, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi currently slots the Vols as the No. 5 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after the loss to Kentucky, meaning they’re the top 2-seed.

Toeing the line of a 1-seed, Tennessee will turn its attention toward Saturday’s matchup against Vanderbilt. The Vols will be looking to avenge their January loss to the Commodores. Tip-off is set for Noon ET live on the SEC Network.