For Tennessee to advance to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, the Vols will need to handle business in a familiar gym over the next three days.
Over the past three seasons, Tennessee has only played in NBA arenas during the postseason tournament: The Hornets and Pistons’ arenas in 2024, the Magic and Knicks’ arenas in 2023, and the Pacers’ arena in 2022.
This time will look a bit different, though. Rather than landing one of the sites with an NBA facility attached to it, Tennessee landed in Lexington, KY, and will play its first weekend at the University of Kentucky’s Rupp Arena.
While Tennessee’s lone trip to Lexington ended with a loss to the No. 15 Wildcats this past season, UT head coach Rick Barnes doesn’t quite believe that the widespread familiarity of a rival’s gym will have much of an impact on the games for Tennessee this weekend.
“I don’t know that it really does,” Barnes said on Wednesday about if the familiarity of the arena can impact the game. “If you talk about being in it, people don’t realize how extremely hard it is just to win one game in this tournament, let alone try to win the whole thing. I think by the time — in our situation, we have played here, obviously. But I don’t know that it’s a big deal. I don’t really know — I would think not, to be quite honest with you. I just think that guys have played a lot of basketball this year. And right now they’re focused on just trying to continue to do what they’ve done to get here, and I think that’s as far as getting some time in a gym to go shoot, players adjust pretty quickly with that.”
Tennessee senior guard Jahmai Mashack had a similar sentiment while speaking to the media on Wednesday. Despite playing in the building multiple times during his four-year career with the Vols, Mashack is approaching Rupp Arena with a positive mindset to affect the good vibes surrounding the game.
“Yeah, it’s a little weird playing in an arena like this, but like I always say, I’m never going to speak down about the arena I’m playing in because I feel like it creates bad vibes, and I don’t want that to happen to any of us,” Mashack said. “So I always say I love playing at this arena, I love the gym, I love the courts. And I think that’s going to help me if I talk like that. I think I can speak for all of us and say we are excited to play at an arena like this, and we’re going to go out and hopefully use the experience that we have played in here as an advantage over the other team.”
More from RTI: Wofford Provides A Clear Rebounding Reminder For Tennessee Basketball Entering NCAA Tournament
When Tennessee arrived at the arena for practice on Wednesday, Vols guard Zakai Zeigler strolled down a familiar hallway and was set up in the same visiting locker room that he’s used to. Zeigler even dropped his stuff in the exact same locker that he did during the Vols’ road trip here in February.
But it won’t be Big Blue Nation on the other side of the court this time. It’ll be the Wofford Terriers, the 15-seed in the Midwest Region and Tennessee’s opening opponent in its quest for a championship.
If Tennessee gets past Wofford on Thursday, the Vols will be set up with a Round of 32 game against either 7-seed UCLA or 10-seed Utah State on Saturday to close down the weekend. From there, it’s the Sweet 16 and on.
For more insight into Wofford’s team heading into Thursday’s matchup, check out RTI’s opponent preview here. Otherwise, make sure you’re locked into Rocky Top Insider for complete Tennessee Basketball coverage during the Vols’ run through the NCAA Tournament.
