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Pat Forde, national sports columnist for Yahoo! Sports, picked Tennessee to win the 2014 Southeastern Conference Basketball Tournament.
Forde believes Tennessee needs one more win to lock up an NCAA Tournament bid, but thinks the Vols are hot enough right now to take down everyone in its conference tournament path, including the No. 1 seeded Florida Gators.
Minutes pick: Tennessee (27). This is an admitted psycho selection. The Volunteers haven’t won the SEC tourney since 1979 and have rarely come close, no matter how good they were. But that can’t go on forever, can it? Tennessee closed the regular season with a rush, winning four straight – the last three by at least 27 points. And they’ll be more motivated than potential semifinal opponent Florida, which will be far more concerned with the NCAAs.
TENNESSEE’S NCAA TOURNAMENT CHANCES, ACCORDING TO THE EXPERTS.
As for Tennessee’s hopes for the big dance, Joe Lunardi has Tennessee in his “last four in” (Tennessee, Saint Joseph’s, Dayton, Arkansas) as a No. 11 seed.
Jerry Palm of CBS Sports also has Tennessee as one of the last four in the dance (Xavier, Arkansas, Providence, Tennessee). Palm has the Vols as a No. 12 seed.
Ken Pomeroy puts the Vols chances of winning the SEC Tournament at 20.3%, behind only Florida—who he says has a 49.2% chance of cutting down the nets on Sunday. Pomeroy wrote that people are all over the board when evaluating Tennessee.
Yet people are so down on Tennessee that they’re not even a lock for the NCAA tournament at this moment. However, people are high on Tennessee when defending Wichita State’s schedule. See, the defenders say, Tennessee is so good they beat Virginia by over 30 points. But people are down on Tennessee when criticizing Wichita State’s schedule, too. See, the critics say, Tennessee got swept by lowly Texas A&M. There are a lot of contradictory signals here.
Lastly, Micahael Beller of SportsIllustrated.com has the Vols on the outside looking in. His first four out are California, Tennessee, Providence and Missouri.
The Vols will play in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals on Friday at 3:30 p.m. in Atlanta, GA.
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