Tennessee to play Texas in SEC tournament quarterfinals

Tennessee Basketball has been gearing up for the SEC tournament this week, and now they know their first opponent. It’ll be the Battle of UTs for the second time this year, as Texas has made an impressive run so far to make it to Friday. The Longhorns dispatched Vanderbilt on Wednesday afternoon and then wrapped up a thrilling double overtime win over Texas A&M earlier today. Texas is playing for their NCAA Tournament lives as they were on the outside looking in before yesterday but now Joe Lunardi has them as his last team in.

Texas has found a groove in Nashville, but two months ago in Austin, Rick Barnes got the last laugh as Tennessee got out of town with a close 4-point win. Can Rick Barnes pull out his 4th win in a row over his former employer or will Tennessee bow out of the SEC tournament early like they did last year? Either scenario has no bearing on the overall goal of securing the program’s first-ever final-four appearance, but make no mistake: Tennessee is not going to Nashville to tank the tournament.

Right now, Tennessee is on the 2-seed line, but it isn’t crazy to think winning the tournament would be enough to secure a 1-seed. Tennessee will most likely be facing Auburn on Saturday if they can defeat Texas, and whoever the potential opponent on Sunday would be in the championship game is also a quality team. 3 more quality wins and a trophy might get the Vols on the 1-seed line, and even if it doesn't, I’ll take a trophy any day. So yes, this year’s SEC tournament does matter more than in years past, but if the Vols were to lose on Friday it isn’t the end of the world. Either way an exciting weekend of Basketball is coming up in Nashville.