Letter from Sports Editor: Tennessee can do it this year

ANDREW PETERS Sports Editor

I have been watching college basketball far too long for anything to surprise me. I’m never shocked when a top seed gets upset. I just think to myself, “That’s March.”

It’s a little frustrating watching March Madness as a die-hard NBA fan because I know that the best team won’t always win. In the NBA, the best-of-seven format used for the playoffs means the champion in the end is almost always the best team. There is very little room for upsets and multiple games mean that one bad shooting night won’t make or break a team’s chances of winning it all.

March Madness is different. The best team could be knocked out in the first round (see Virginia 2018) or go all the way. In my opinion, winning a National Championship in college basketball is one of the hardest feats in all of major sports.

In college and professional football, upsets are much harder to come by because of the nature of the sport. It’s uncommon to see a team get hot and play significantly better than they normally do — unless you are South Carolina at the end of last football season. Baseball and hockey are like the NBA, using best-of-seven series to decide winners.

In March Madness, you have to be on top of your game for five games straight to win a championship.

That is why I am asking everyone to cut Tennessee some slack for its postseason showings over the last few seasons.

Sure, Tennessee probably should have beat Oregon State in the first round two years ago and Michigan in the Round of 32 last season, but March Madness is all about upsets, and the Vols have just happened to be the victim of those upsets recently.

Since 1985, there have been an average of 13 upsets per year. Last year, two-seeded Kentucky lost to 15-seeded St. Peters and eight-seeded North Carolina made the championship. It’s just the nature of March. It is impossibly hard to win the tournament.

But this year, I think Tennessee could make up for all the early losses in recent years.

The field heading into the tournament is wide open. There is no clear best team, but rather 1015 teams that seem capable of winning it all. That being said, I think this year’s March Madness favors the Vols.

Tennessee has the best defense in the country by far and it has been consistent. That will be huge when the Vols come across mid major schools that rely heavily on scoring. If Tennessee can get past two decent-to-bad teams in the first two rounds, it then will take on a field that is incredibly average compared to normal years.

In most bracket projections, Tennessee is in the East Region as the No. 3 seed and would have to get past the top-seeded teams in the region, Kansas State and Purdue, to make it to the Final Four. Obviously this is not a given, but those teams are very beatable. Both have lost to some bad conference opponents.

Some of the other top seeds in the tournament are Alabama, Kansas and Texas, all of which the Vols have beat this season. This tournament is anyone’s to win.

Sure, Tennessee’s February struggles were probably discouraging to most fans, but it’s better to struggle in February and succeed in March, and I think that’s what Tennessee can do this season.

So Tennessee fans, it’s time to stop thinking about the past and start focusing on this year. I think you might just be surprised.