{"id":66954,"date":"2025-08-08T06:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/66954\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T06:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:10:09","slug":"tennessee-basketball-set-to-kick-off-sec-slate-on-the-road-against-a-familiar-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/66954\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Basketball Set to Kick Off SEC Slate On The Road Against a Familiar Face"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"Tennessee<\/p>\n

<\/a>Felix Okpara (34) attempts a free-throw during a game against Arkansas at Food City Center. Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. Cole Moore\/RTI<\/p>\n

Tennessee Basketball will see a familiar face when it tips off its SEC slate in early January.<\/p>\n

After the conclusion of what should be a thrilling non-conference schedule<\/a> for the Vols, Tennessee will open the SEC season on the road against John Calipari and the Arkansas Razorbacks. That game will take place Saturday, Jan. 3, in Fayetteville, AR.<\/p>\n

The Vols will then return to Knoxville for a mid-week game against Texas and newly appointed head coach Sean Miller before hitting the road for a weekend game against defending champion Florida in the Gators\u2019 own building.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a heck of an opening stretch for Rick Barnes\u2019 new-look squad, but the early competition will be a positive for the team.<\/p>\n

This is the second straight year that Tennessee has opened the SEC slate against Calipari\u2019s Razorbacks, as the former Kentucky coach enters his second season with Arkansas. The Vols dominated the Razorbacks in Knoxville last season to the tune of a 76-52 win. Tennessee was led by Chaz Lanier in that game, who opened his SEC career with 29 points on 50% shooting from the floor.<\/p>\n

Tennessee\u2019s win over Arkansas also provided one of Calipari\u2019s more memorable quotes from the college basketball season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing I would do different in this game, and all night I tossed and turned, we didn\u2019t do a shootaround today,\u201d Calipari said, dropping his fist on the table<\/a>. \u201cAnd I just felt, our body time is noon. Pretty early. If I had to do it over again, we would\u2019ve come shot shootaround. Because we had three or four guys kind of no-show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game against No. 1 Tennessee was at 1:00 p.m. local time in Knoxville.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

More From RTI:\u00a0ESPN Names High-Profile Rematch as Tennessee\u2019s Top Non-Conference Game<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at what Tennessee\u2019s full 2025-2026 SEC schedule looks like:<\/p>\n

Jan. 3: at Arkansas<\/p>\n

Jan. 6\/7: vs. Texas<\/p>\n

Jan. 10: at Florida<\/p>\n

Jan. 13\/14: vs. Texas A&M<\/p>\n

Jan. 17: vs. Kentucky<\/p>\n

Jan. 20\/21: BYE<\/p>\n

Jan. 24: at Alabama<\/p>\n

Jan. 27\/28: at Georgia<\/p>\n

Jan. 31: vs. Auburn<\/p>\n

Feb. 3\/4: vs. Ole Miss<\/p>\n

Feb. 7: at Kentucky<\/p>\n

Feb. 11: at Mississippi State<\/p>\n

Feb. 14: vs. LSU<\/p>\n

Feb. 17\/18: vs. Oklahoma<\/p>\n

Feb. 21: at Vanderbilt<\/p>\n

Feb. 24: at Missouri<\/p>\n

Feb. 28: vs. Alabama<\/p>\n

March 3\/4: at South Carolina<\/p>\n

March 7: vs. Vanderbilt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Felix Okpara (34) attempts a free-throw during a game against Arkansas at Food City Center. Saturday, Jan. 4,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,1089,398,400,401,99,17962,17963],"class_list":{"0":"post-66954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-john-calipari","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tennessee-basketball","15":"tag-tennessee-vols"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66954","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=66954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}