KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee men’s basketball team received its highest national ranking of the season by placing fourth in each major national poll, as announced Monday afternoon.
Tennessee (21-6, 11-3) moved up one position in both the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and the USA TODAY Coaches Poll. The team’s No. 4 ranking is its best since taking the No. 2 spot on Jan. 30, 2023.
The 2023-24 season marks the sixth in program history in which Tennessee has ascended to fourth or better in the AP Poll, joining 2022-23 (second), 2018-19 (first), 2007-08 (first), 2000-01 (fourth) and 1967-68 (fourth). Half of those six campaigns are in the last six years, under the direction of head coach Rick Barnes.
This is the 55th straight week Tennessee is in the AP top 25, good for the third-longest streak in the country behind only Houston (81) and Kansas (60), while the only other team at 40-plus is Arizona (53). That number is 18 weeks longer than the previous program high of 37. In addition, Tennessee has garnered a top-10 spot in over half of those weeks, 28 of 55.
This is the 11th week in a row the Volunteers are in the AP top 10, matching a stretch in 2022-23 for the fourth-longest mark in program history. Of those five instances, three are in the last six years under the guidance of Barnes, who has steered the program to 53 AP top-10 positions during the last seven seasons of his nine-year tenure, 36.1 percent of its all-time total.
This is also the sixth time Tennessee has earned an AP top-five ranking in 2023-24, one shy of its second-most in program history, as it did so 14 times in 2018-19 and on seven occasions in 2007-08. In total, 24 of the Volunteers’ 41 all-time AP top-five rankings have come in the past six seasons with Barnes at the helm.
Full Story: UT Sports
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