I Have Crunched the Numbers and Tennessee Is Not Dead Yet

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They thought it was over. They left us for dead.

Not so fast, my friends.

After a thorough drubbing of Arkansas on Tuesday night, I went to work crunching the numbers. Could there possibly be a way for this once-forgotten Tennessee team to still somehow find its way into the NCAA Tournament? Oh you bet your Big Orange asses there is.

While the Vols may not be quite back on the bubble as of right now, they have plenty of opportunities in the final weeks of the season to place themselves squarely back on it. The scenario I listed above does not even include Tennessee being able to pull off an upset over Kentucky or Auburn — which would assuredly be a huge boost — but let's just take what's listed in the tweets as a baseline.

Here is the résumé of the aforementioned Florida team as compared to this year's Tennessee squad.

Not too dissimilar.

What UT has going against it right now is that ugly home loss to Texas A&M and the fact that KenPom and the NET rankings still don't look too favorably on the Volunteers. But all of that could change relatively quickly with a few wins strung together heading into that meaty conclusion of the schedule — not to mention the Vols will certainly have opportunities for more quality wins in the SEC Tournament.

I certainly would not qualify Tennessee's NCAA Tournament chances as "likely." But the team that handed Arkansas its worst loss of the season on Tuesday looks a little different. All I'm saying is y'all better watch out, because we ain't dead yet.