FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 4 Tennessee pulled off a feat no team has been capable of this season by rebounding from a seven-point deficit before a roaring, sold-out crowd of 13,474 at Alabama's Coleman Coliseum to trip the No. 14 Crimson Tide 81-74 on Saturday.
The Volunteers (23-6, 13-3), the preseason pick to win the SEC regular season title, took over sole possession of first place in the conference with their sixth-consecutive win. Tennessee had downed No. 11 Auburn 92-84 in Knoxville, Tenn., on Wednesday last week.
The win over Alabama gave Tennessee its first back-to-back wins over top 15 opponents in more than 24 years, since winning 81-79 in double overtime at No. 9 Florida and beating No. 7 Auburn 105-76 on Jan. 18 and Jan. 25, 2000.
Alabama was the lone SEC team unbeaten at home this season. The Crimson Tide's last home loss in league play had been in an 81-77 setback against Texas A&M on March 2, 2022, two years to the day before the Vols' win on Saturday.
Tennessee's path to the regular season crown and the No. 1 seed for the SEC Tournament is still spiked with difficulty.
The Volunteers travel to Columbia, S.C., on Wednesday for a 6 p.m. Central tilt against hard-charging South Carolina. The Gamecocks will be aiming for a series sweep, as they handled the Volunteers 63-59 in Knoxville, Tenn., on Jan. 30.
After that, the Volunteers host hot Kentucky at 3 p.m. Central on Saturday (CBS) with all kinds of issues riding on the outcome.
In and out
Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com upgraded Tennessee to the final No. 1 seed position, uprooting North Carolina and joining Purdue, Houston and UConn, in his latest NCAA Tournament bracket projection on Sunday.
The Volunteers had been parked as a 2 seed for many weeks running in the projections of many analysts. However, Tennessee's wins over No. 11 Auburn and No. 14 Alabama last week lifted them up by a seed line for Palm.
His bracket pick now includes seven SEC teams, with 4 seeds Alabama and Auburn, 5 seeds Kentucky and South Carolina, 8 seed Florida and 10 seed Mississippi State joining the Volunteers. Texas A&M and Ole Miss have fallen off the back side of the bubble in the last couple of weeks while Florida and Mississippi State have seemingly solidified their standing.
Joe Lunardi of ESPN.com had Tennessee still as a 2 seed in his projection prior to Saturday's games. That bracket pick included 3 seed Alabama, 4 seeds Auburn and Kentucky, 6 seed South Carolina, 7 seed Florida and 8 seed Mississippi State out of the SEC. He also had Texas A&M and Ole Miss among his "next four out," prior to the Aggies' 70-56 win at Georgia and the Rebels' 84-78 win at Missouri, neither of which helped either team's NCAA NET ranking.
All-SEC
There's a strong belief Tennessee's Dalton Knecht and Alabama's Mark Sears will garner the bulk of the support for SEC player of the year as the conference's top two scorers. Sears is at 20.7 points per game while Knecht is at 20.6. Those two and Kentucky's Antonio Reeves (20.0 ppg) are the league's only 20-point scorers.
That trio will almost certainly headline the All-SEC squads chosen next week.
Here's a guess at three team's worth of all-league players:
First team: Sears, Knecht, Reeves and Ole Miss guard Matthew Murrell and Auburn forward Johni Broome.
Second team: Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler, Texas A&M guard Wade Taylor IV, Arkansas guard Tramon Mark, South Carolina guard Meechie Johnson and Florida forward Tyrese Samuel.
Third team: Mississippi State guard Josh Hubbard, Missouri guard Sean East, Florida guard Walter Clayton, Mississippi State forward Tolu Smith and Texas A&M forward Andersson Garcia.
Mississippi State guard Josh Hubbard would seem a runaway choice for SEC freshman of the year.
An All-SEC Freshman team projection: Hubbard, Kentucky guards Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard, Auburn guard Aden Holloway and South Carolina forward Collin Murray-Boyles.
Broome should be a contender for SEC defensive player of the year, along with A&M's Garcia, Ole Miss 7-foot-5 shot-block leader Jamarion Sharp and Sheppard, the SEC steals leader.
Double byes
The battle for the double byes is a six-team race for four spots with only league-leading Tennessee clinching a place in that group.
Florida, at 10-6 in the conference, has the longest shot at making the top four among the six.
Alabama and South Carolina are a game behind the Volunteers at 12-4, while Auburn and Kentucky are a game behind that.
Tennessee's last SEC crown was a shared title in 2018 with Auburn.
South Carolina has not claimed sole possession of first place in the SEC since its 1997 team went 15-1 and won the league by two games over Kentucky. Alabama won regular season titles in 2021 and 2023 under Coach Nate Oats, while Auburn took the title in between. Kentucky's last regular season championship came in 2020.
The four teams with double byes will not have to start their SEC Tournament runs until the quarterfinals Friday in Nashville, Tenn.
Wednesday starts
The foursome of Missouri, Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Georgia are strong favorites to face off against each other to open the SEC Tournament next Wednesday in Nashville.
Missouri (0-16 SEC) and Vanderbilt (3-13) are locked in to the first-four set of games, while one more loss for either Arkansas (5-11) or Georgia (5-11) will clinch that designation. Ole Miss and Texas A&M are both 7-9 so one of those teams would have to have an 0-2 week while either the Razorbacks or Bulldogs go 2-0 just to create a tie.
The Razorbacks own a tiebreaker over the Aggies, whom they have swept, but would lose a tiebreaker against Ole Miss, which won the only meeting this year. The Bulldogs just lost their only meeting against Texas A&M, 70-59 on Saturday in Athens, Ga., and they host Ole Miss tonight.
Wildcats' way
Kentucky forward Tre Mitchell returned Saturday against Arkansas after missing four games with a shoulder injury, giving the Wildcats their first game all season with every player on the roster available.
Coach John Calipari has had to deal with a series of roster issues -- with eight players accounting for 52 missed games -- though the Wildcats boast one of the deepest groupings of talent in the country.
Kentucky leads Division I with 40.8% shooting from three-point range and it ranks third in scoring at 89.6 points per game. The Wildcats rank seventh nationally with 49.8% field goal shooting.
Gator crater
Florida has held double-figure leads in the second half of road games at Alabama and South Carolina in the last two weeks.
The Gators could not hold on to either of those advantages, which were 72-62 with 8:40 remaining at Alabama, and 56-46 with 12:29 left at South Carolina.
Alabama rallied for a 98-93 win in overtime on Feb. 21. The Gamecocks switched to a zone defense and flustered the Gators down the stretch in an 82-76 decision on Saturday.
"I thought it was obviously a good move, just to try to change the pace for them," Florida Coach Todd Golden said. "We just weren't aggressive enough attacking it. Just moving a little too much side to side at the top. ... We just didn't attack it very well at all."
Reverse the results in those two games and Florida would be a game out for the conference lead.
Florida will get a chance to avenge the loss to the Crimson Tide when they host Alabama at 6 p.m. Central tonight on ESPN. The Gators finish the regular season slate at Vanderbilt at 3:30 p.m. Saturday (SECN).
Beard for 20
Coach Chris Beard wanted to make Ole Miss an immediate contender in his first season at the helm. While the Rebels are not engaged in the race for a top four seed, they have become much more competitive under Beard after five mostly lackluster years with Coach Kermit Davis.
Ole Miss hit a tangible milestone on Saturday with its 84-78 win at Missouri by notching its 20th win. The Rebels last reached that number during a 20-13 in Davis' first year succeeding Andy Kennedy in 2018-19. Kennedy's Ole Miss teams won 20 games nine times in 12 seasons, with a max of 27-9 in 2012-13, accompanied by a 12-6 SEC record.
Beard has a 191-82 record in eight-plus seasons as a head coach at Arkansas-Little Rock (2015-16), Texas Tech (2016-17 to 2020-21), Texas (2021-22 through 8 games in 2022-23) and Ole Miss.
Last chances
Missouri has two more shots to avoid an 0-18 SEC record: a game at 7 p.m. tonight at home game against Auburn and its regular season finale at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at LSU.
The Tigers lost their first eight SEC home games by a combined 80 points, an average of 10 per game. Their most recent home results have been encouraging, with losses by five points to Tennessee (72-67) and six points to Ole Miss (84-78).
Vanderbilt's 0-18 SEC run in 2018-19 is the only such record in conference play since Missouri and Texas A&M joined the league for the 2012-13 season.