KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – For the 90th week in a row, the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team is featured in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll.
Tennessee (11-5, 1-2 SEC) checks in at No. 24 nationally in this week’s poll, as revealed Monday afternoon.
The 90th straight ranking for the Volunteers continues a streak that dates to the 2021-22 preseason poll. That is 53 weeks above the prior program high of 37, which took place from March 1999 to Feb. 2001.
Tennessee owns the second-longest active streak in the country, trailing just Houston (116). No other team is at even 70-plus weeks, while the nearest SEC team, Alabama, ranks sixth at 40 weeks, 50 shy of Tennessee.
In total, head coach Rick Barnes has now led Tennessee to 144 AP top-25 rankings across his 11-year tenure. All of them are since the start of the 2017-18 campaign.
Tennessee is just outside the top 25 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, collecting the 26th-most points in the balloting to lead the receiving votes section.
The Volunteers split their two games last week. They first notched an 85-71 victory Tuesday night against Texas at Food City Center, with senior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie scoring a career-high 34 points on 12-of-18 shooting. Saturday, the team dropped a 91-67 road result at Florida, the defending national champion, against whom freshman forward Nate Ament scored 17 points.
Tennessee finished with 140 points in the AP Poll balloting, just 21 behind No. 23 Utah State. It recorded 45 points in the Coaches Poll, 12 behind No. 25 Kansas.
Six SEC teams are in the top 25 of at least one of the two major polls. Tennessee is joined in that group by No. 10/8 Vanderbilt, No. 17 Arkansas, No. 18 Alabama, No. 19/20 Florida and No. 21/22 Georgia. Additionally, Texas A&M is receiving votes from both outlets.
The Volunteers are back in action Tuesday at 7 p.m. against Texas A&M, live on SEC Network from Food City Center. Coverage begins at 6:30pm on 103.1FM WIKQ
