Tennessee wrapped up its pursuit of an SEC title but the push for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament continues.

The No. 4 Vols (24-6, 14-3) claimed their first outright conference championship in 16 years Wednesday night in the wake of a 66-59 win at South Carolina. Now, they shift their focus to their second match up in over a month against No. 15 Kentucky (22-8, 12-5).

Tennessee beat the Wildcats, 103-92 in Lexington on Feb. 3.

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For Tennessee, it serve as more than another momentum booster heading into the SEC Tournament in Nashville nest week. The Vols will honor four senior players who are playing their final games in Knoxville, including fifth-year guards Josiah-Jordan James and Santiago Vescovi as well as superstar transfer guard Dalton Knecht and forward Colin Coyne.

Ahead of the game against the Wildcats at Food City Center on Saturday, (4 p.m. ET, CBS), Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes previewed the clash and reflected on the careers of his senior players.

“We’re proud of what these guys have accomplished up to this point, but we know that there’s another game Saturday. And it’s a big game, last one of the year and certainly Senior Night for some special guys here. But it’s a mindset. We keep talking about that. And we know that we have great respect for Kentucky. I think they’re the most explosive offensive team in the country. And John (Calipari) does what he always does and gets his guys playing great basketball at the end of the year and they just keep building. They been on a little bit of a roll themselves. It doesn’t take much to get our guys’ attention because of the respect that they have for Kentucky and their program. So we know that we’re going to have to be ready to play.”

“Justin Edwards has become more of a part of it. D.J. Wagner didn’t play up there, so they’ve got different guys. And I think they’ve all improved. We saw what Rob Dillingham did against us, but Reed Shepherd, those guys are all improved and they’ve got a lot of guys that can make difficult shots and go get their own shots. But again, it’s what John does. His teams always get better. They always do. And he had a lot of young guys work into it and he’s done exactly what all of us that know him would expect him to do.”

“I can’t put it into words because we’d be here all night, because I could talk about each one of them for hours on hours. Because from the time they got here, we were really in a transition period, and those guys were young and growing up, but they’re the ones that over the last (five years), they’ve been the rock, both of them. Then you throw Zakai (Zeigler) coming in and then you add Dalton to this group. But Josiah and Santi, I mean been the rock, they’ve been the foundation, they’ve been the ones that know us. They know the coaches better than anybody. They know our standard. They know everything that we want done here. And so they’re a voice not only to their teammates, but a voice that, from the coaching staff standpoint, that you listen to.”

“His humility. You know, when he came in he never once talked about coming in thinking he was gonna be the leading score, wanted to do this or do that. He simply said from the beginning, I want to be in a winning program. I’d like to have a chance to play in the NCAA tournament, and I wanna be part of a good program and I want to be coached hard. I think (when) you talk about Santi, Jo and Dalton, the word that comes to mind is humility. I don’t think those guys have a false sense of security in terms of who they are, how they got to act. I think they go about the way they go about their business every day. I did an interview this morning, a radio interview and I made a comment that I guarantee you when I walk in today before practice, Josiah will be out on floor and he’s out there and you just get to know these guys and the way they go about their business. And I said before, I’ve walked out of here many nights late and Dalton in there shooting, and I’m like, make sure you’re taking care of your body. He said, ‘I’ll be in the ice bath tonight. I promise.’ And Santi the same way. It’s just that you spend so much time with these guys, you get to know them. And if anybody deserves to have two senior days, I would say it’s probably Josiah and Santi.”

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“Well, he’s all about winning. I mean, nobody leads the country in more winning plays that go unnoticed than Santi. But Santi’s a very unselfish player. I mean, he understands who he is, what he needs to do. But again, from the time we started recruiting really Justin (Gainey) first and then Dalton, we knew we needed to add some offense to us. And those guys knew it too. And they’re really part of the reason those guys are here because as Santi and Jo have, they’ve gone out of the way to make sure that everybody comes in here, that that’s the guys that we want.

They make sure that they want them to be a part of the team and the way they do their deal with them. I think people leave being impressed with Jo and Santi and the way they handle everything in the recruiting process, but it’s just humility and those guys— Santi is an example of that.”

“Well, again, today someone asked me about (Knecht) and, you know, we go through preseason and you guys watch a lot of it and see it and I don’t think any of you guys thought he was going to do what he did either. And I think the biggest moment was, I set it after the exhibition game against Michigan State. One, he played harder than he’d ever played and practiced defensively. And then when he made that dunk, I’m like, whoa. Because I hadn’t seen that either. I’d seen him do some things, and then certainly hearing about the guys in the summer, he and Jahmai (Mashack) going at it but I mean, there’s a lot of things he’s done, but I hope he’s got a lot more left in the bag as we head down the stretch here.”

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“It is amazing. We take great pride in trying to put together our walk-ons. Our coaching staff, people would probably be shocked at how hard and how much intel we do on that. I got a call from Bob McKillop. He told me about Colin. He said I promise you that you will love having him in your program. He said if I were going to coach another year, I would love for him to be here. He said you are going to love him. From the time that he has gotten here, one he has improved a lot. But he has become a huge part of this program. The fact that he has earned the respect of his teammates. We are going to miss him. You look at what he does. Getting ready, a story about him, we are getting ready to play Auburn. Johni Broome is left-handed. We said hey we’ve got to get some moving to your left. He went out and for days he worked on shooting left-handed. He takes his role so seriously. You love people like that. He has been a big part of our program. We are going to miss him, too, because he cares so much about his teammates and what we are trying to get done here.”

“Well, again, I would say, I think maybe the best thing is talk about (the) transition they went through. I think that Grant (Williams) and his group laid the (foundation). (It) was the beginning of the foundation that we wanted to lay here, but those guys (James and Vescovi) have certainly come in and they’ve been pillars to keep it going. I mean, both of them. And they’ve had their ups and downs. You think about it, we recruited Josiah extremely hard. I mean as hard as maybe anybody we’ve recruited over a two-year period. Mike Schwartz did an incredible job licking in early when he was a sophomore. We recruited Santi — Ken McDonald, knew some people at the NBA Academy, all for about a month. And he decided he was gonna leave early and come, but Joe came in with high expectations. Santi, nobody knew who he was, but they both got here different ways. They’re gonna leave the same way in the fact that, again, almost like cornerstones in their time here, that they’ve been a rock that we’ve been able to rely on and build on.”

"Again, Santi, I remember as if it were yesterday, (Vescovi) got here and I said, ‘Hey, give me some sets you’re familiar with and we’ll put ’em in. We got one day here to get it going because we need you.’ And we were doing a little bit of some things, what he talked about, but I think he hit what, five threes in that game? But he was in terrible shape. We laugh about that, you know, he was really in terrible shape. But the way he went from a guy that everybody was saying offense, offense, offense, where he became such a complete player. He’s played every spot other than what the post position, he’ll guard anybody. Santi’s, defensively, I mean he’s become one of the elite defenders in the country and the fact that his work ethic, he’s a high-level competitor. If Santi were playing checkers, he’d want to win, but he’s totally changed and you know, last summer was the first summer he really spent with us because of obligations and doing other things. But he’s totally changed what — he was known as a guy that was like just a spot-up shooter and he’s become so much more than that.”

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