Tennessee entered Sunday afternoon's Southeastern Conference tournament championship game inside Nashville's Bridgestone Arena hoping that a win over Florida would enable the Volunteers to slip past the Gators as the fourth and final No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament.
The Gators weren't thinking along those same lines.
Using its size, depth and talent that may prove to be unmatched in the weeks ahead, second-seeded Florida powered past fourth-seeded Tennessee 86-77 to win its first SEC tourney title since 2014 while denying the Vols their second such crown in four seasons. Tennessee (27-7) on Sunday night received the 2 seed in the NCAA's Midwest Region and will open play Thursday against 15th-seeded Wofford (6:50 p.m. on TNT) at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
"I'm very confident in our team," Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. "I could sit here and say right now we just got beat by the best team in the country, and it was a three-possession game. I can also come up with three or four things that we can't do. That's how fine a line it is.
"This has been a fun team to coach. I want more for them, and I know they want more."
The Vols are an NCAA tournament 2 seed for the fifth time in program history and for a second consecutive year. Tennessee has a 28-27 all-time record in NCAA play, which includes a 9-6 mark under Barnes, who guided last season's Vols to the Elite Eight before falling to eventual runner-up Purdue.
Wofford is just 19-15 overall but won the Southern Conference tournament as the sixth seed, topping fifth-seeded Furman 92-85 in the title game after Furman upset the top-seeded University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in the semifinals.
This will be the ninth series meeting between Tennessee and the Terriers, with the Vols having won the previous eight. The most recent encounter took place inside the Food City Center on Nov. 14, 2023, with Tennessee prevailing 82-61.
"I've got a lot of respect for Wofford's program and that university," Barnes said. "They've got a winning tradition, and I have respect for that league. We're going to play a team who has guys like Chaz Lanier and Jordan Gainey. This is the level we got those guys from.
"We'll try to get that one and get to the next one. It's four teams together in a weekend tournament."
Should the Vols make it nine straight over the Terriers, they would play Saturday in Rupp against the winner of seventh-seeded UCLA (22-10) and 10th-seeded Utah State (26-7). If Tennessee faces the Bruins, one instant storyline would be Barnes interviewing for the Bruins opening after guiding the Vols to a 31-6 record in 2018-19.
Barnes interviewed due to the "lure of UCLA basketball" and admitted he likely would have taken the job had UCLA bought out his contract at Tennessee.
Two wins by the Vols in Lexington would send them to the Midwest Regional semifinals in Indianapolis, which is five hours from Knoxville.
"I am excited for our fan base," Barnes said. "We talk about Vol Nation being the very best, which it is, so that part is really, really good."
Tennessee trailed Florida 60-47 midway through the second half when Gainey connected on a 3-pointer, a layup and a free throw, and two more free throws on three consecutive possessions to make it 60-55. The Vols could get no closer, however, as 3-pointers by Walter Clayton Jr. and Tommy Haugh pushed the Gators' lead back to 12 at 76-64.
Will Richard's two free throws with 4:22 remaining after drawing the fifth foul on Jahmai Mashack gave Florida a 78-64 lead, its largest of the game. Lanier had fouled out a minute earlier.
Florida wound up outrebounding Tennessee 39-25, and the Gators went 25-of-28 from the free-throw line for an 89.3% success rate.
"I just think we continue to prove what we have been all season, which is one of the best teams in America," coach Todd Golden said of his Gators (30-4). "We continue to show that we can beat anybody in America. When we're playing like this, I think we are the best team in America.
"We've got to keep going."
Clayton led five Florida players in double figures with 22 points, with Richard adding 17, Alex Condon 13, Haugh 11 and Alijah Martin 10. Gainey racked up a season-high 24 for the Vols — who split a pair of regular-season games with the Gators — with Zakai Zeigler chipping in 23 with eight assists.
"We knew it was going to be a dogfight as soon as we saw we were playing Florida," Gainey said. "It was tough. We've just got to be better next time, and we'll learn from it."
Zeigler and Igor Milicic Jr. connected on 3-pointers within the game's first minute, but Florida used a 7-0 spurt to take a 10-6 lead into the first media time out. Milicic and Lanier each picked up his second foul before the midway mark of the first half, and a Richard 3-pointer at the 7:38 mark staked the Gators to a 25-17 advantage.
Another Richard 3-pointer with 5:11 before halftime provided Florida its first double-digit lead at 32-20.
The Vols climbed within 36-30 on Zeigler's third 3-pointer with 34 seconds before the break, but Denzel Aberdeen answered right before the halftime horn to make it 39-30. The most impressive stat of the first 20 minutes was Florida committing just two turnovers.
Florida and Tennessee were two of 14 SEC members to get invited to the 68-team NCAA field, a record for one conference, but a day that began with Barnes focusing on the Gators ended with him turning his attention to Wofford.
"Anybody playing right now has to be playing good basketball to get in and punch their ticket," Barnes said.
Familiar setting
Mashack and Zeigler will be playing for a fifth time in Rupp Arena when the Vols face Wofford.
"Is that Rupp?" Zeigler said when asked about the familiarity of Tennessee's next game at the home of the Kentucky Wildcats. "I saw Lexington, but I didn't know it was in Rupp. I guess you could say that helps a little bit."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.