The SEC released its complete men’s basketball schedules for the 2024-25 season on Tuesday afternoon. It’s the first year of the expanded 16-team SEC schedule. The SEC schedule remained at 18 games despite the expansion so instead of Tennessee playing five teams twice, they only play three teams twice this season.
Tennessee faces traditional basketball rivals Kentucky and Vanderbilt twice as well as Florida. The Vols have play the 12 other members in the conference once including home games against Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State, Missouri and South Carolina as well as road games at Auburn, Florida, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas and Texas A&M.
The Vols open up conference play with an incredibly intriguing matchup on Saturday, Jan. 4 when they host John Calipari and Arkansas at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. Tennessee’s SEC opener will mark Jonas Aidoo’s return to Knoxville as part of a SEC foe.
Tennessee has a handful of marquee home Saturday matchups including against Florida and Alabama. The Vols matchup both at home and on the road are during the middle of the week.
It’s supposed to be another strong season in the SEC with up to eight teams projected to be in the Preseason Top 25. With that comes a hard conference schedule but despite that fact, Tennessee has no truly brutal stretches of conference play.
Its first three games of SEC play— vs Arkansas, at Florida and at Texas— is probably the hardest stretch on the schedule. Another challenging stretch comes at the end of January and start of February where they’ll travel to Auburn and then host Kentucky and Florida at home.
The SEC usually stacks the final stretch of conference play for its top title contenders but Tennessee didn’t get a brutal closing stretch this season like they did last year. The Vols’ final four conference games are at LSU, vs. Alabama, at Ole Miss and vs. South Carolina.
Expectations are high for Rick Barnes’ 10th team at Tennessee as the Vols look to defend their SEC Regular-Season Championship from a season ago. Tennessee lost a handful of top contributors including Dalton Knecht, Santiago Vescovi, Josiah-Jordan James and Jonas Aidoo. However, Tennessee went to work in the transfer portal landing North Florida’s Chaz Lanier, Hofstra’s Darlinstone Dubar, Charlotte’s Igor Milicic Jr and Ohio State’s Felix Okpara.
Check out Tennessee’s complete SEC schedule here.
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Complete 2025 SEC Schedule
Saturday, Jan. 4 — vs. Arkansas
Tuesday, Jan. 7 — at Florida
Saturday, Jan. 11 — at Texas
Wednesday Jan. 15 — vs. Georgia
Saturday, Jan 18. — at Vanderbilt
Tuesday, Jan. 21 — vs. Mississippi State
Saturday, Jan. 25 — at Auburn
Tuesday, Jan. 28 — vs. Kentucky
Saturday, Feb. 1 — vs. Florida
Wednesday, Feb. 5 — vs. Missouri
Saturday, Feb. 8 — at Oklahoma
Tuesday, Feb. 11 — at Kentucky
Saturday, Feb. 15 — vs. Vanderbilt
Middle of the Week, Feb. 18-19 — BYE DATE
Saturday, Feb. 22 — at Texas A&M
Tuesday Feb. 25 — at LSU
Saturday, March 1 — Alabama
Wednesday, March 5 — at Ole Miss
Saturday March 8 — vs. South Carolina
