The Tennessee men’s basketball team is Sweet 16-bound for the third straight season.
But the Volunteers’ path to the school’s first Final Four berth — not to mention the NCAA tournament title itself — is fraught with sizable roadblocks.
Below, we examine Tennessee’s March Madness odds and route to San Antonio ahead of the Vols’ Friday night Sweet 16 matchup against rival Kentucky.
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Below are the updated national championship odds entering the Sweet 16 …
March Madness odds: Third game vs. Kentucky a charm for Tennessee?
Tennessee (29-7), the second seed in the Midwest Region, has held up its end of the bargain with a 77-62 win over 15th-seeded Wofford and a 67-58 victory over seventh-seed UCLA.
UT is one of a record seven SEC teams headed to the Sweet 16. That eclipses the previous conference standard of six, set by the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2016.
And with eight regional semifinal games, the odds were great that two of the SEC seven would face each other.
Thus we get the first NCAA men’s tourney matchup between the Vols and Wildcats (24-11) — the No. 2 and 3 seeds, respectively, in the Midwest Region.
Even though Tennessee (fourth at 12-6) finished ahead of Kentucky (sixth at 10-8) in the SEC regular season, the Wildcats swept the home-and-home series, winning 78-73 in Knoxville on Jan. 28 and 75-64 in Lexington on Feb. 11.
The Jan. 28 defeat was the Vols’ only setback in 17 home games this season.
A glaring shooting percentage deficit — 38.1 to 50.0, including 22.2 to 50.0 from 3-point range — was one of the primary reasons the Vols were swept as a 10.5-point home favorite and 3.5-point favorite on the road.
But oddsmakers are undeterred, opening Tennessee as a 4.5-point favorite Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium (7:39 p.m. ET, TBS).
BetMGM Sportsbook reported Monday that the bets have been shaded Wildcat blue, though, so far with Kentucky garnering 55 percent of the point spread tickets and 51% of the handle.
Over the last five seasons, Kentucky has won seven of the 11 head-to-head meetings straight up and against the spread.
March Madness odds: Vols eyeing Final Four breakthrough
With an all-time low four conferences represented, the Sweet 16 is top-heavy this season.
Seven of the 68-team bracket’s top eight seeds are still alive entering the regional semifinals. That includes all four No. 1s (Auburn, Florida, Duke and Houston) and 12 of the 16 top-4 seeds overall.
A full 15 of this year’s Sweet 16 teams were seeded among the bracket’s top 24 entering the tourney, with the only exception being the West Region’s 10th-seeded Arkansas.
Speaking of which, 2025 marks first Sweet 16 with no seed lower than a 10 since 2007. That’s only happened five times since the bracket expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
The Midwest Region certainly has played out to top form as the only region with seeds 1-4 still alive.
So with Big 12-champion Houston 32-4) remaining the solid favorite to represent the Midwest Region in San Antonio (see odds below), the Vols’ path to the program’s first-ever Final Four berth is a challenging one.
And going strictly by guru Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency ratings, Tennessee has the toughest potential path — vs. No. 15 Kentucky and No. 2 Houston — out of its region among the seven No. 1 or 2 seeds still alive.
Coach Rick Barnes’ Vols check in fifth in KenPom ranks with a +31.23 net rating, trailing only Duke (39.00), Houston (35.87), Florida (35.64) and Auburn (34.96). Tennessee has the nation’s third-most efficient defense (89.3 points allowed per 100 possessions) and 17th-best offense (120.6).
March Madness odds: Tennessee trails 1-seeds on title oddsboard
On the strength of two dominant wins so far in the bracket, East Region No. 1 seed Duke (33-3) is a heavy favorite to win the national title on April 7.
Star freshman Cooper Flagg is showing no ill-effects from his ACC tournament ankle injury, helping the Blue Devils to a 93-49 rout of 16th-seed Mount St. Mary’s and an 89-66 thumping of 9-seed Baylor so far.
Only Houston, with an average NCAA tourney margin of victory of 21.5 points, is within 12 points of the Devils’ 33.5 average.
Duke also is the only team in the Pomeroy ratings boasting both a top-nine-ranked offense (No. 1) and defense (No. 4). Asa result — and as seen in the table above — the Blue Devils enter the Sweet 16 as the only team with consensus national title odds better than +350.
Florida , Auburn and Houston are next on the national championship oddsboard before we get to Tennessee at . Alabama is another rung back at .
Residing on the right side of the bracket does the Vols no favors as even if they win the Midwest, a probable national semifinal matchup with Duke would await in San Antonio.
