Tennessee opens as favorite against Texas in second round of the NCAA Tournament
Tennessee basketball opened as a 6.5-point favorite for its second-round game Saturday against Texas in the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region, according to BetOnline. The No. 2-seed Vols beat No. 15 Saint Peter’s 83-49 to advance Thursday night, after the No. 7-seed Longhorns beat No. 10 Colorado State 56-44.
Saturday’s game is an 8 p.m. Eastern Time start at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte and will be televised by CBS.
No. 1 North Carolina opened as a 4-point favorite against Michigan State, Creighton is a 5-point favorite against Oregon, North Carolina State is a 5.5-point favorite against Oakland and Illinois is a 10-point favorite against Duquesne.
No. 2 Iowa State is an 8-point favorite against Washington State, Kansas is a 4-point favorite against Gonzaga and Arizona is a 9.5-point favorite against Dayton.
Dayton-Arizona is a 12:45 p.m. ET start on CBS and Kansas-Gonzaga follows at 3:15 on CBS. Michigan State-North Carolina is set for 5:30 p.m. on CBS and Iowa State-Washington State starts at 6:10 p.m. on TNT.
N.C. State-Oakland is a 7:10 start on TBS/TruTV, followed by Duquesne-Illinois at 8:40 p.m. on TNT and Creighton-Oregon at 9:40 p.m. on TBS/TruTV.
Saturday will mark the third straight season Tennessee has played Texas, which is set to join the SEC alongside Oklahoma next year. Texas won 52-51 in the Big 12-SEC Challenge in Austin in January 2022 and Tennessee won 82-71 when the Longhorns made the return trip to Knoxville last season.
Tennessee hosted ESPN College GameDay before playing Texas at Thompson-Boling Arena. The Vols led by 12 at halftime and cruised to the 11-point win thanks to 27 points from Olivier Nkamhoua, 22 points and 10 rebounds from Zakai Zeigler, 14 points from Josiah-Jordan James and 12 more from Santiago Vescovi.
Texas got 21 points from Sir’Jabari Rice and 11 points from both Brock Cunningham and Marcus Carr.
The Longhorns in Austin two years ago were led by 18 points from Courtney Ramey. Zeigler had 12 points off the bench for Tennessee and James scored 11 points. The Vols trailed by 16 with 5:34 left, but rallied to tie the game with a 16-0 run before losing on a Texas free throw with six seconds left.
Rick Barnes spent 17 years at Texas before parting ways with the school in 2015 and getting hired only days later at Tennessee. He took the Longhorns to the Final Four in 2003, to the Elite Eight in 2006 and 2008 and to Sweet Sixteens in 2002 and 2004.
Barnes on Saturday will be looking to lead the Vols to the Sweet Sixteen for the third time since 2019.
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