Vols Wearing Home Unis With Sweet Sixteen at Stake
About six weekends ago, the Tennessee Volunteers lost for the second time this season to the Texas A&M Aggies. Both games looked as though UT had them well in hand and both times they were done in by an unlikely three-pointer from a guy who rarely shots them. The loss dropped them to 7-7 in the SEC and likely off the NCAA Tournament bubble. After two years of the NIT, Vol fans began to grumble about the lack of consistency. One of their main complaints was how they could blow a team out one game and then lose to a team like the Vanderbilt Commodores then next.
Fast forward to today and that seems like a long time ago. Tennessee won their last four SEC regular season games, all by blowouts. They beat those Commodores by 38 points and finished the regular season 11-7 in the SEC. A semifinal finish and a close loss to the #1 Florida Gators was enough to get them into the Big Dance, but by the skin of their teeth. They were sent to play the Iowa Hawkeyes in the First Round at Dayton. Playing at Dayton is an admission that your team barely got an invite. But after a nice comeback win over the Hawkeyes and a dominant win over the UMass Minutemen in the Second Round, and thanks to the Mercer Bears upset win over the Duke Blue Devils, Tennessee will be the higher seed in today’s game with the Bears. They will be wearing the home whites today. Hopefully they thought to bring them. They would not be blamed for leaving them home.
If head coach Cuonzo Martin was ever on the hot seat, he is no more. The thought of firing him would be ridiculous in his third year considering he came in after the Bruce Pearl fiasco that landed the Vols in hot water with the NCAA. The penalties from the NCAA included a restriction on recruiting for the new coaching staff. So only now is Martin on a level playing field. Yet there were those after the A&M game that wanted the school to bring Pearl back even though he was the one who got them into this supposed mess. But now Pearl has accepted the job at SEC rival Auburn Tigers and Martin is a favorite to get to the Sweet Sixteen. My how stupid those folks look now. A win today and one more next week and Martin will have taken the Vols as far as Pearl or any other coach ever has.
WagerWeb has the odds on today’s game:
Mercer vs Tennessee- Mercer is +8.5 -110 and Tennessee is -8.5 -110 ATS. Moneyline is Mercer +315 and Tennessee -400. Do not sleep on these Bears. They have wins over the Alabama Crimson Tide and Florida State Seminoles to go along with the win over Duke. They are not afraid of the big name schools. But the Vols have two big men in Jarnell Stokes and Jeronne Maymon that they will have a difficult time handling. Take the Vols -400 to win the game but the Bears +8.5 -110 ATS.
