[Old School Hound]

The Illinois game worries me a lot!!  Should we squeak by them, I have little hope to beat Tennessee a third time.  It's just near impossible to beat a good team three times in one season.  That's what my head says.

My heart wants this team to go to the Final 4.

Yeah, two things I always look at around tournament time:  who is playing the best ball at tourney time and will a team have to beat another for a third time. In the case of UK/UT , the Vols are playing the better basketball and we would have to beat Rocky Top for a third time this season. That's a double negative for us. However, in our favor, we are a real matchup problem for the Vols. The way we can space the floor and have multiple guys who can knock down threes is a real problem for the orange team. I think if we played Bama or Auburn 100 times, we MIGHT win six or eight times. If we played UT 100 times, I think we win 60 or 65 of them. Maybe 70. March is about matchups and the matchup against UT favors us a lot more than a matchup with Bama or Auburn would. I can tell you this. From reading some Big Orange boards, Vol fans would just as soon not have to face KY again. They feel KY just has their number. That happens.