{"id":57136,"date":"2025-08-04T06:44:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T06:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/57136\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T06:44:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T06:44:20","slug":"bracketology-prediction-has-tennessee-basketball-back-in-the-championship-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/57136\/","title":{"rendered":"Bracketology prediction has Tennessee basketball back in the championship picture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"61\">Rick Barnes and Tennessee basketball are reloading this year. In the world of college athletics, rarely are teams rebuilding, and the Vols aren&#8217;t taking a year off to chase the Final Four appearance they have been so close to reaching the past couple of seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"64\">Tennessee is coming off back-to-back Elite Eight appearances, but they weren&#8217;t able to win either of those matchups, sending the Vols home ahead of the Final Four.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">That is slowing down Barnes&#8217; and the Vols&#8217; momentum, though, as they are prepared to come back fighting for another deep postseason run with a fresh, new look.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">Team leaders like Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack are earning spots on NBA rosters, and the Vols&#8217; sharpshooters Chaz Lanier and Jordan Gainey are also gone, leaving a lot of openings for Barnes to fill.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6d\">Barnes knew he had a tall task ahead of him and landed Maryland transfer point guard Ja&#8217;Kobi Gillespie, Vanderbilt transfer forward Jaylen Carey, and Louisiana Tech transfer guard Amaree Abram in the transfer portal, along with signing five-star Nate Ament.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">While we haven&#8217;t seen this version of the BasketVols take the court yet,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/espn\/feature\/story\/_\/page\/bracketology\/ncaa-bracketology-2026-march-madness-men-field-predictions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ESPN&#8217;s Joe Lunardi<\/a>\u00a0believes the talent brought in can produce another great season on Rocky Top.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6j\">Lunardi has the Vols as the No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region, continuing the success Barnes has seen over the past seven seasons. Over that span, Tennessee has been a five-seed or better every year in the NCAA Tournament, including five of those seven seasons where the Vols were a three-seed or better.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">That trend continues as the Vols are paired with No. 14 UNC-Wilmington in the first round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">Tennessee could also see some familiar faces in this region. They are also joined by No. 1 Houston, No. 8 Texas, No. 9 Creighton, No. 5 Alabama, No. 4 Illinois, and No. 10 Ole Miss, all teams Tennessee has faced in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">Based on this projection and previous summer projections, Lunardi sees the Vols as a three-seed or possible two-seed if a couple of games go their way during conference play.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">It will be another challenging season for the Vols in conference play, and Barnes made sure to schedule non-conference contenders, including Duke, Houston, and Illinois, to make sure his team is ready for a run in spring 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rick Barnes and Tennessee basketball are reloading this year. In the world of college athletics, rarely are teams&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-57136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}