Heading into the SEC Tournament, it felt like the stakes at the top of the conference were perfectly clear: While Auburn, Duke and Houston had the inside track on the first three No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the fourth and final one would go to whichever non-Tigers team fared best over the weekend in Nashville. ESPN's Joe Lunardi even confirmed as much, claiming that a one seed was at stake for the winner of the Florida-Alabama-Tennessee trio — a fair assessment, considering that those three at currently Nos. 4-6 in the NET rankings.
Now, though, it seems like that's no longer the case. In Lunardi's final bracket projection before Selection Sunday, he has the Gators as No. 4 overall seed and the No. 1 in the West region. And he even went one step further, saying that projection wouldn't change even if Florida lost to Tennessee in the SEC Tournament final on Sunday afternoon. Which begs the question: Why should the Vols even bother showing up at all?
Tennessee should be irate with Joe Lunardi's latest bracket projection
To be clear, Florida was extremely impressive in punching its ticket to the championship game, steamrolling Alabama in a 104-82 win that emphasized just how high this team's ceiling is. (You could argue that it's the highest of anyone in the country, especially with Cooper Flagg's health currently in doubt.)
But it's absurd to suggest that the only thing on the line in a game that will decide the champion of the clear-cut best conference in the country is a T-shirt. If Florida wins, this is a moot point; the Gators will have a darn-near unimpeachable resume, and the final No. 1 seed will be a formality. If Tennessee wins, though, it's hard to understand the argument snubbing the Vols.
Rick Barnes' team would have 12 Quad 1 wins compared to Florida's 10, and they'd take the season series with the Gators two games to one (both teams won convincingly on their home court). Florida would have one fewer loss, and they did finish two games ahead of the Vols in the conference standings during the regular season. But Tennessee also notched impressive wins over Louisville and Baylor in the non-conference, wins that Florida's relatively weak non-con schedule failed to provide, and the Gators' loss at Georgia is worse than anything the Vols have on their resume.
If it sounds like these are two very evenly matched teams with evenly matched records, well, that's the whole point. The SEC Tournament was supposed to serve as the rubber match, a way to finally separate teams that had fought tooth-and-nail all season long. But now, at the last moment, at least Lunardi thinks that the selection committee is set to pull the rug out from under the Vols. And if nothing is actually at stake here, why would a Tennessee team that has battled injury already this year risk even more for a game that they've been told doesn't matter?