Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes at the SEC Tournament in Nashville. Photo via SEC.
Four-seed Tennessee will take on 13-seed Louisiana on Thursday night in the first round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
With the tournament on the horizon, the week is going to be filled with bracket predictions, upset alerts, and championship picks.
When looking at the collection of early brackets from the various experts on Monday, it’s clear to see that the immediate trend is not in favor of Tennessee. While most have Tennessee advancing to the second round in the first weekend, no one from the selections below has the Vols going further than that.
In the last four March Madness tournaments that have been played, “12 of the 16 matchups between No. 4 and 13 seeds were decided by single digits, including all four in 2022,” according to ESPN Stats and Info. Despite the single-digit margin, though, no 13-seed came out victorious over a four-seed in 2022. All of the four seeds except for one, Illinois, then advanced to the Sweet 16 last season.
Since the brackets were revealed on Sunday night, Tennessee has seemingly been picked as an early upset favorite across the land. CBS Sports’ broadcast on television immediately called out Tennessee as a potential upset pick in the first or second round of the tournament.
According to Josiah-Jordan James on Monday, though, Tennessee isn’t a team that needs to feel validated by the folks on television to be motivated for the game on Thursday.
“We have all the motivation we need,” James said. “We feel like we’ve been disrespected all year. Granted, we’ve had some tough losses but we don’t really listen to the outside noise. We have all the fuel, all the motivation we need because we know we have to go down there and get the job done.”
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Here’s a look at how some of the experts picked the Tennessee Volunteers in their early brackets immediately following Selection Sunday.
CBS Sports
Gary Parrish
Has Tennessee defeating (13) Louisiana, losing to (5) Duke in the second round
National Champion: Houston over Alabama
Matt Norlander
Has Tennessee defeating (13) Louisiana, losing to (12) Oral Roberts in the second round
National Champion: Houston over Purdue
Jerry Palm
Has Tennessee losing to (13) Louisiana in the first round
National Champion: Alabama over Gonzaga
Kyle Boone
Has Tennessee defeating (13) Louisiana, losing to (5) Duke in the second round
National Champion: Houston over Alabama
ESPN
Jay Bilas
Has Tennessee defeating (No. 13) Louisiana, losing to (5) Duke in the second round
“Without Zeigler, Tennessee is nowhere near as good. But, the Vols should bully their way to a win against Louisiana… Tennessee’s defense is fantastic, but Duke is bigger, more athletic, and better offensively. Unless youth shows up, Duke wins.”
National Champion: Arizona over UConn
Jeff Borzello
Has Tennessee defeating (13) Louisiana, losing to (5) Duke in the second round
National Champion: Alabama over Houston
Sports Illustrated
Pat Forde
Has Tennessee losing to (13) Louisiana in the first round
National Champion: Alabama over Kansas
