A couple of national pundits criticized Dalton Knecht and Tennessee players for having the gall to celebrate after clinching the program’s second outright SEC Regular Season Championship in 57 seasons.
The notion is ridiculous on its own. Tennessee players set the goal when they first came together in June to begin this season. Achieving goals and winning championships are worth celebrating even if there are greater goals remaining.
And make no bones about it, Tennessee has larger goals remaining.
“We got the job done, but at the same time the job is not finished,” star Dalton Knecht told the media postgame. “We still have the SEC Tournament and the big one.”
In fact, Knecht mentioned Tennessee having two more championships they have to win five separate times in his postgame press conference.
The soon-to-be SEC Player of the Year wasn’t the only one in the Vols’ program quick to state that there’s more out there for Tennessee this season.
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In the locker room postgame, ninth-year Tennessee coach Rick Barnes complimented his team before quickly letting everyone know that this was just the first of many goals they wanted to achieve.
“I’m glad we did this but I want you to understand we want to play on Monday,” Barnes said, referencing the National Championship game.
Tennessee assistant coach Rod Clark took to X (formerly Twitter) following the win and shared the popular clip of Kobe Bryant saying “job not finished” after the Lakers took a 2-0 series lead in the 2009 NBA Finals.
— Rod Clark (@CoachRodC_UT) March 7, 2024
Tennessee has more goals remaining this season and being a veteran team bodes well for its ability to put Wednesday’s win and this championship in the rearview and move on to the next thing. They need to do that quickly before hosting a strong Kentucky team on Saturday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center.
But the Vols’ eight man rotation includes three fifth-year seniors, four juniors and one sophomore. Tennessee’s showed its mature mindset the last two weeks as they’ve picked up big win after big win while not lingering on the following victory.
So Tennessee celebrated winning the regular season SEC Championship on Wednesday night. As they should have. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have greater goals still out there.
