KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – For the second consecutive season, the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team placed fifth in the year-end national polls.
Tennessee (30-8, 12-6) finished fifth in the country in both the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, as announced Tuesday afternoon.
The Volunteers ascended one position on each list, as they started the NCAA Tournament sixth overall. Tennessee beat Wofford, UCLA and then-No. 18/21 Kentucky to advance to the Elite Eight for the second year in a row. Once there, it fell to Houston, an eventual NCAA finalist.
Tennessee’s fifth-place finish in the AP Poll matches a program previously record in 2023-24, 2021-22 and 2007-08. This is the second time the Associated Press has released a year-end poll after the NCAA Tournament, as the final poll from 1948-49 through 2022-23 came beforehand. The Volunteers have finished fifth in both iterations of the post-NCAA Tournament AP Poll.
Meanwhile, the Volunteers’ fifth-place spot in the Coaches Poll—the outlet has traditionally released a ranking after the NCAA Tournament—ties the program record set just last season, in 2023-24. Before this two-year stretch, their top mark was seventh in 2007-08.
The Volunteers were one of only four teams to rank in the top 12 of the AP Poll and/or Coaches Poll the entire season, alongside Alabama, Auburn and Duke. One of five teams to hold the AP No. 1 position this year, Tennessee spent five weeks atop the list, tied with Kansas for the second-most of any team.
Tennessee notched 11 AP top-10 placements in 2024-25, passing the nine it had last season for its second-most ever in a single campaign. That figure trails only the 14 it posted in 2018-19.
This is the 18th consecutive AP top-10 ranking for the Volunteers—all were in the top eight—dating to Nov. 25, 2024. That is the second-longest streak in program history, behind only the 20-week ledger in 2018-19. All three marks in program of 15-plus weeks are over the last seven years under the direction of head coach Rick Barnes.
In total, Tennessee is in the AP top 10 for the 76th time in Barnes’ 10 seasons, all since 2017-18, after it earned 28 AP top-10 nods in the 14 years (2001-15) before his hiring. The Volunteers have garnered an AP top-10 ranking in 37 of the 42 AP Poll releases over the past two seasons, including a top-eight spot in 33 of the past 36.
Over the last 58 AP Poll announcements—that extends back to Nov. 28, 2022—Tennessee has collected a top-15 spot in 55 of them, all but three.
The Volunteers are in the AP top 25 for the 80th straight week, a tally that spans four full campaigns, since the 2021-22 preseason poll. That figure is 43 above the previous program record of 37 weeks, set March 1999 to Feb. 2001. Tennessee’s 80-week streak is the second-best active mark in the nation, behind only Houston (106). No other school is at even 60-plus, while the closest SEC team is fifth-place Kentucky with a 42-week count that is 38 behind the Volunteers.
Tennessee concluded the year with 1,220 points in the AP Poll balloting and 621 in the Coaches Poll voting.
The Volunteers are one of eight SEC teams in the year-end rankings, four of which are in the top six. They are joined by top-ranked Florida, fourth-ranked Auburn, sixth-ranked Alabama, No. 12/14 Kentucky, No. 18 Ole Miss, No. 19 Texas A&M and No. 20/25 Arkansas.
In addition to coming in at fifth in the AP Poll and Coaches Poll, the Volunteers finished fifth on KenPom.com to tie the program-best mark set in 2023-24. Tennessee also ranked fifth on Haslametrics.com, fifth on ESPN BPI, sixth on BartTorvik.com, sixth on ESPN SOR and seventh on EvanMiya.com. This is the second season in a row Tennessee placed top-seven on all those lists.
