Tennessee Vols earn a two seed in NCAA Tournament

The NCAA Tournament field is set, and the Tennessee Volunteers and the rest of the participating teams know where they’re headed and who they’re facing.

For Tennessee, that is the Midwest Region as the 2 seed, with a Thursday opening matchup against Wofford in Lexington, Kentucky.

Yes, that’s right. The Vols’ first SEC tournament game will be played in the Kentucky Wildcats’ home of Rupp Arena. Talk about irony. And what’s even more noteworthy is that the Vols are slated to face 3 seed Kentucky if both teams advance to the Sweet 16.

And if the selection committee didn’t love history and drama enough, they – once again – put the Purdue Boilermakers in the Vols’ region as the 4 seed. If Purdue and Tennessee made a run to the Elite Eight, there would be a rematch of their clash last year for a trip to the Final Four, which Purdue won 72-66.

But, looking back at the first and second round games, I like the matchups for Tennessee. UCLA doesn’t intimidate me as a 7 seed.

The SEC put an astounding and record-setting 14 teams in the dance, as Texas made it as one of the last four teams in. Of course, North Carolina and their 1-12 quad one record somehow made the field as well. And……oh, hey, look. Their athletic director is the chairman of the committee. Huh. Surely that was just a coincidence.

Auburn and Florida earned one seeds as expected, with the former being the #1 overall seed. However, I think Auburn has the far tougher path while Florida’s road to San Antonio is a relative cake walk by comparison. The Tigers are dealing with a possible 8/1 matchup in Lexington against Louisville – basically a home game for the Cardinals – with B1G tourney champ Michigan awaiting in the Sweet 16. Iowa State – who was in play for a 2 seed themselves for a long while – and Michigan State are waiting on the other side of the bracket for Bruce Pearl. That’s nasty.

We’ll see how things play out when the tournament gets underway in earnest on Thursday afternoon.