On Saturday, January 2, the Tennessee Volunteers (7-1) men’s basketball team lost its first game of the season to the Alabama Crimson Tide — a disappointing effort coming after a stellar win against the Missouri Tigers. Such is life in the perilous world of college basketball.
In the grand scheme of things, Tennessee’s loss might not come back to haunt them. In a conference where the clearest potential conference champion was/is Tennessee, they still seem primed to make a run at the title. When projecting the rest of the Vols year after the first few games, I picked them to go 21-4, which included a loss to Missouri, a potential loss against Kansas, and a couple of slip-ups throughout the season.