Tennessee Basketball: Where the Vols are ranked in the updated AP Top 25
Tennessee basketball stayed at No. 22 in Monday’s updated Associated Press Top 25. Last week the Vols dropped 11 spots, from No. 11 to No. 22, after the 78-66 loss to Colorado at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
On Wednesday Tennessee (2-1) bounced back with an 81-50 win over Florida Gulf Coast at Thompson-Boling Arena. The Vols, who travel to the Bahamas on Monday, are scheduled to play Butler on Wednesday in the Battle 4 Atlantis at approximately 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The game will be televised by ESPN2.
The eight-team Atlantis tournament guarantees three games in three days for each team. On Thursday the winners and losers from the Tennessee-Butler and Southern Cal-BYU games will play. Losers play at 1:30 p.m. ET and winners play at 6:30.
The other side of the bracket features Kansas and North Carolina State (Noon ET, Wednesday, ESPN) and Dayton and Wisconsin (2:30 p.m. ET, Wednesday, ESPN2). Southern Cal and BYU play at 5 p.m. ET Wednesday, with Tennessee and Butler serving as the final game Wednesday night.
The tournament’s championship game is scheduled for Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Up Next: Tennessee vs. Butler, Battle 4 Bahamas, Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2
Butler (3-1) lost 68-62 at Penn State on last week. The Bulldogs have home wins over New Orleans, Saint Francis and The Citadel.
KenPom.com has Butler at No. 86 overall while ranked No. 96 in adjusted offensive efficiency and 88th in defensive efficiency.
“They’re a good team,” Tennessee associate head coach Justin Gainey said last week. “They have some really good guards that are aggressive, they’re downhill, they’re in attack-mode, they’re older, so they’ve been through the fire. They’ve seen a couple of transfers. They have the (Manny) Bates kid inside who is a load. He’s 6-foot-10, 6-foot-11. He was — I wanna say — top five NC State in blocks before he left and he was only there two years. He’s a rim protecting big with touch around the basket.
“Then they have the stretch-four kid that is really aggressive shooting the three,” Gainey added. “Essentially playing four guards around one big and playing with good pace. It’s a good basketball team and I feel like they have an identity of who they are and everybody has bought in that role.”
Vols ranked No. 4 in adjusted defensive efficiency per KenPom.com
Tennessee is No. 7 overall in the KenPom ratings. The Vols are ranked No. 22 in offensive efficiency and No. 4 in defensive efficiency.
On the defensive end is where Gainey said this Tennessee team’s identity is based.
“I think at the end of the day,” Gainey said before practice on Friday at Pratt Pavilion, “and in every game we’ve been in, we’ve defended. We’re a team full of defenders. That’s who we are. We’re going to guard. I don’t think we’ve ever lost track of that.”
In the loss to Colorado on November 13, Tennessee let Colorado shoot 53.6 percent from the field and 38.5 percent from the 3-point line as the Buffaloes outscored the Vols by 14 points on the way to the win.
“I think we have had a few possessions where maybe we hung our head or were worried with what happened on the other end,” Gainey said. “Our identity at the of the day is a tough-minded defensive unit and unselfish group.”
