Tennessee basketball tabbed 2-seed in Midwest Region of NCAA Tournament

The Vols were tabbed the 2-seed in the Midwest Region of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, marking the sixth-straight year that the program has made the tournament under head coach Rick Barnes and the 26th time ever.

Tennessee is the sixth overall seed and the second highest 2-seed.

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The rest of the region includes 1-seed Purdue, 3-seed Creighton and 4-seed Kansas and 5-seed Gonzaga. The Vols played both Purdue and Kansas in back-to-back games at the Maui Invitational in Honolulu in November.

Tennessee, which reached the Sweet 16 as a 4-seed last season, will begin its tournament stay against 15-seed St. Peter's on Thursday with a potential second round clash against either 7-seed Texas and the winner of First Four Virginia and Colorado State on Saturday at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte (9:20 p.m. ET, TNT).

If the Vols make it out of the first weekend, they'll move on to the Sweet 16 for the second-straight year to play either 6-seed South Carolina, 11-seed Oregon, Creighton or 14-seed seed Akron at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on March 29.

Vols enter NCAA Tournament on losing skid

Tennessee looked primed for a dominating run when it won three-straight games against AP top 20 teams and clinched its first outright SEC title in 16 years.

The Vols followed up their conference championship with a home loss to Kentucky in their regular season finale and then had a quick exit at the SEC Tournament in Nashville after a convincing loss to Mississippi State.

With the SEC Player of the Year in prolific guard Dalton Knecht and a veteran-laden roster with plenty of big-game experience, Tennessee has the makeup of a Final Four team, though two-straight losses have changed the optics some.

Neither of the two losses were detrimental to the Vols' postseason aspirations, though winning one or both could have potentially secured the fourth 1-seed. The loss to Mississippi State did reveal a concerning trend that has crept up on past Tennessee teams.

Knecht was held to 14 points and was unable to pull off another second half comeback as a lack of physicality in the paint and poor shooting put the Vols in a significant hole in the first half that they were unable to climb out of.

Scoring droughts have plagued Barnes' teams in the NCAA Tournament before and the SEC Tournament was the first time this season that Tennessee hasn't been able to answer on the offensive end.

The Vols will need to avoid shooting lulls and get the most out of AP All-SEC First Team forward Jonas Aidoo in the paint like they did much of the regular season.

Tennessee 2-seed for fourth time

Tennessee was in contention for one of the top four 1-seeds of the NCAA Tournament heading into the weekend, which would have been a program first. Instead, the Vols are the 2-seed for the fourth time in program history.

Tennessee was the 2-seed previously in the 2006 and 2008 NCAA Tournaments and again under Barnes in 2019.

Starting out as a 2-seed has led to mixed results for past Vols teams. They didn't make it out of the first first weekend in 2006, falling to Wichita State in the second round.

In 2008, Tennessee reached the Sweet Sixteen for the second-straight season under then-head coach Bruce Pearl, beating American and Butler before losing to 3-seed Louisville.

Barnes' 2019 team, which is arguably his best to date at Tennessee, outlasted Colgate and needed overtime to down Iowa to reach the Sweet Sixteen again, but a controversial loss to 3-seed Purdue ended its season.