Uros Plavsic reveals the secret sauce to Tennessee's late-season run

The Tennessee Volunteers only lost one game after the SEC-Big 12 Challenge break, skyrocketing them in the top 25. Their winning streak is at six games as they head into the SEC Championship game versus Texas A&M. Vols junior forward Uros Plavsic discussed the key factor that contributed to their hot streak.

“You know, this team has great chemistry, and you know that is something that these guys — I love about this team.” Plavsic said. “We are together a lot off the court, and I love every single one of these guys like they are my brothers. There’s nothing that can get in between us and stuff like that, and I think that the fact that we are really close, it makes us compete against each other really hard in every single practice. And I think that shows in the games.

“So we have great leadership on the team, and I think that is really important at this time of the year, having your leaders going through these games leading younger guys, so I think that is what it is.”

Plavsic is averaging 4.1 points per game for the Vols in a career-high 13.8 minutes per game but his minutes have gone up this postseason.

Tennessee looks to secure its first SEC Tournament Championship since 1979 and their fifth overall in program history just hours before the selection committee reveals their official March Madness bracket.

Rick Barnes reveals what Tennessee needs to win SEC championship

2019 was the last time Rick Barnes led his Tennessee Volunteers to the SEC Tournament Championship game. They defeated Kentucky in the semifinals, just as they did Saturday, but three seasons ago Barnes could tell his team didn’t have much left in the tank before the championship and he was right. Tennessee would get blown out by Auburn in the title game.

The difference between now and then — Tennessee is as fresh as can be.

“Well, the last time we were in this situation, it was against Kentucky as well,” Barnes said. “It was one of those games that we had a quick turnaround to play again. We had to really expend so much energy the night before, but these guys are young. I tell you, they are. And I like to think that our older guys, they talked about the chemistry, the maturity with our leadership. It will be on them to get it.

“We’ll talk about it, but it’s going to be on them to truly focus and put the phones down. And they have done a good job of that when it’s time to come in and get our game prep ready. They’ve done a good job of that really pretty much all year long, and we’ll have to continue.”

To Barnes’ point, seven of his Volunteers this season are freshmen, while the 2018-19 team Barnes mentioned had only one freshman in Brock Jancek who barely played.

Kennedy Chandler and Zakai Zeigler are lighting up the SEC Tournament and continue to prove why the Volunteers are legitimate national championship contenders whether they’re SEC Tournament champions or not.

On3’s Barkley Truax contributed to this report.