2026 Official Seed Watch List Thread

[bleedingTNorange]

As of today, 1/11/26, TeamRankings gives us pretty much a 50/50 split of being 5 seed or better, or 6 seed or worse. The by seed chances are listed below, I’ll update periodically in this post but also make a new post in the thread as well when I do so. Our most likely range is from a 3 seed to 8 seed, so that’s what I’ll focus on with teams around us and the seed list that I post, just like in years past I will use bracketmatrix.com…


3 seed
Purdue
Kansas
Michigan State
Florida
——————————
4 seed
Gonzaga
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Texas Tech
——————————
5 seed
Alabama
North Carolina
Tennessee
St. John’s
——————————
6 seed
Arkansas
BYU
Louisville
Clemson
——————————
7 seed
Saint Louis
Kentucky
Iowa
North Carolina State
——————————
8 seed
Villanova
Auburn
Utah State
Central Florida

 

[cncchris33]

Barring an undefeated finish, I think 4 is our ceiling. Sure would be nice to get to a 3, though. Maybe a strong SECT run would bump us up a line without finishing undefeated.

 

[MinisterofDef#92]

We can nake sure Candy drops and we replace them as a 4 seed IF we take care of business against an "easy" SEC schedule starting tonight.

 

[TheMookieMonster]

Barring an undefeated finish, I think 4 is our ceiling. Sure would be nice to get to a 3, though. Maybe a strong SECT run would bump us up a line without finishing undefeated.

I think a 7-1 finish with your only loss on the road to a Top 20 Vandy could get you to that 3-line, as we’d pick up two more quality wins against Vandy and Alabama to boost our resume and metrics.

But, I think 6-2 is far more likely of a finish. We have yet to drop our obligatory and annual “weird SEC loss” to a bad team. I just don’t see us getting through the rest of this without a slip up against a Mizzou on the road or USC. Or even MSU tonight. So I’m at 6-2 as the most likely finish.

 

[vol94]

Barring an undefeated finish, I think 4 is our ceiling. Sure would be nice to get to a 3, though. Maybe a strong SECT run would bump us up a line without finishing undefeated.

I think a 3 seed may be a reach. You would need numerous teams to drop a couple ( Purdue, Zags, etc) along w/ TN winning all but one.

If I was a betting man, I would say final four will be all one seeds as those teams are playing well. But, Anything can happen in March.

 

[bleedingTNorange]

While not a direct correlation but 3/4 #2 seeds took a L last night: Nebraska, Illinois & Iowa State. Nebraska has lost 3/4 and is dropping quick.

 

[cncchris33]

I think a 3 seed may be a reach. You would need numerous teams to drop a couple ( Purdue, Zags, etc) along w/ TN winning all but one.

If I was a betting man, I would say final four will be all one seeds as those teams are playing well. But, Anything can happen in March.

I agree with a 3 being a reach. It isn't hard to find 12 teams who could finish the season with a better résumé than Tennessee. Plus, I just don’t see us doing what's necessary to get our own résumé to the edge of 3-seed territory. We are too erratic. Hope I'm wrong, obviously.

 

[vol94]

I agree with a 3 being a reach. It isn't hard to find 12 teams who could finish the season with a better résumé than Tennessee. Plus, I just don’t see us doing what's necessary to get our own résumé to the edge of 3-seed territory. We are too erratic. Hope I'm wrong, obviously.

I think we will be a 4 @ best, most likely a 5. As you know, it’s all about matchups and advancing as far as possible before playing the one seed. I don’t like the matchup with any of the possible one seeds ( Duke, UConn, Michigan, Zona, Illinois, or even Houston - though we beat them 2 months ago).

We are too inconsistent and will run out of juice if we get that far, imo. Our only hope is if Gillespie hits his ceiling and Ament goes on a tear in March. That and one of our bigs can contribute offensively.

I think it’s “chalk” this yr - hope not.