That didn’t take long.
What a start it’s been for Tennessee basketball. The Volunteers, completely retooled from a season ago, have started white hot. Tennessee holds a road win against Louisville along with neutral site wins over both Virginia and Baylor. At Illinois, Miami and Syracuse all remain on the non-conference slate.
That early success has pushed Tennessee up the rankings and into a No. 1 seed slot for ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. It’s obviously super early in the season, but the bracketologist placed the Volunteers as the No. 1 seed in his projected East Region this week.
Tennessee was joined by Auburn, Gonzaga and Kansas on the 1-line. UConn, Duke, Iowa State and Kentucky made up the 2-seed group, although you can expect UConn to take quite the tumble after dropping three straight games in Maui.
Tennessee breezed past UT-Martin on Wednesday, 78-35.
Rick Barnes has gotten after Chaz Lanier to shoot more, and the results speak for themselves. The North Florida transfer was always thought of that guy that could at least get close to Dalton Knecht’s production from last season, and that’s been the case so far this year. Lanier is now averaging over 17 points per game and hitting on 49 percent of his shots from three-point range.
Tennessee clearly has something in Igor Milicic as well, as we’ve already seen multiple big games from the Charlotte transfer. He can score in a few different ways and is proving to be an impact rebounder so far. Felix Okpara has been as advertised in the post, averaging two blocks per game.
Roll all of that together with the core of Zakai Zeigler, Jahmai Mashack and Jordan Gainey and this is what you get — a potential No. 1 seed and a team capable of winning a loaded SEC.
The Volunteers will be back in action on Tuesday night, set to host Syracuse in Knoxville.