KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – For the second consecutive week, the University of Tennessee is the top-ranked men’s basketball team in the country.

Tennessee (10-0) is once again No. 1 in both the Associated Press Top 25 Poll and the USA TODAY Coaches Poll, as revealed Monday afternoon.

This is the seventh time, across three different seasons, the Volunteers place first in the AP Poll. They took the top position once in 2007-08 and four times in 2018-19, in addition to their two such nods this year.

Seven of Tennessee’s nine all-time weeks in the AP top three, including six of its seven No. 1 placements, are during the tenure of 10th-year head coach Rick Barnes. The Volunteers, one of seven teams to earn the top spot in at least two of the last seven seasons, are 24-4 all-time while ranked in the AP top three (20-2 under Barnes), including 9-1 while ranked first (7-1 under Barnes).

This is the 66th week in a row Tennessee is listed in the AP Poll, a streak spanning four campaigns and dating to the 2021-22 preseason release. The tally is 29 weeks greater than the program’s prior top mark and is the third-longest active figure in the nation, trailing only Houston (92) and Kansas (71). No other school is at even 50-plus, with the next closest SEC team, Kentucky (28), placing eighth nationally and 38 weeks behind the Volunteers.

Tennessee is among the top 15 teams in the AP Poll for the 40th time in the past 43 editions, dating to Nov. 28, 2022. This is the 62nd AP top-10 spot for the Volunteers under Barnes’ leadership, including their 30th in the top five, with the latter mark 13 above the program’s full total (17) before his 2015 hire. In addition, the program now has over thrice as many top-two rankings (seven) as it had before his arrival (two).

Barnes has steered the Volunteers to an AP top-five ranking in each of the past four years, a streak only Kansas can equal. He has also coached Tennessee to an AP top-six ranking in each of the last five years, a ledger matched only by Alabama, Houston and Kansas.

Tennessee won both its games last week, claiming a pair of non-home victories over Power Five foes. First, it knocked off Miami, 75-62, Tuesday in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York behind a game-best 22 points from fifth-year guard Chaz Lanier. It then registered a 66-64 road triumph Saturday at Illinois on a buzzer-beating layup by senior guard Jordan Gainey, who also led all scorers with a season-high 23 points.

The Volunteers collected 1,537 of a possible 1,550 points in the AP Poll balloting, a minor seven-point week-over-week drop, as well as notched 50 of 52 first-place votes. In the Coaches Poll, Tennessee claimed 765 of a possible 775 points, a slight five-point decrease from last week, and earned 22 of 31 first-place votes.

Tennessee paces a group of nine SEC teams in the top 25 of at least one poll, with five in the top seven of each. It is featured alongside second-ranked Auburn, fourth-ranked Kentucky, No. 6/7 Alabama, No. 7/6 Florida, No. 12/11 Texas A&M, No. 14/15 Oklahoma and No. 17/16 Ole Miss in both polls, while Mississippi State is No. 25 in the Coaches Poll. The Bulldogs lead the receiving votes category of the AP Poll, with Arkansas and Missouri in the next two spots—both are also in that section of the Coaches Poll—plus Georgia and Texas also listed.

One of five remaining unbeaten teams in the country, Tennessee also places second overall in both the NCAA NET rankings and KenPom rankings.

The Volunteers open a four-game homestand Tuesday at 7 p.m. against Western Carolina, live on SEC Network+ from Food City Center.

To keep up with the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team on social media, follow @Vol_Hoops on Instagram and X/Twitter, as well as /tennesseebasketball on Facebook.

On a night in which both teams were riddled with foul trouble, scoring was at a premium and Tennessee—in its first-ever non-conference true road game as the top-ranked team in America—was facing its toughest road environment of the season thus far, senior guard Jordan Gainey stared adversity in the face and beat the buzzer to give the Vols a 66-64 victory Saturday night at Illinois.
 
“We work on that play just about every day in practice and late-game situations, so we were all prepared for the moment,” Gainey said. “My teammates ran it perfectly and executed it.”
 
When senior guard Zakai Zeigler, the SEC’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, was whistled for his fourth personal foul with 18:13 remaining in the game, it was Gainey who shouldered the load of running the point for nearly the entire second half. 
 
With Tennessee’s leading scorer this season, fifth-year guard Chaz Lanier, fouled out with 3:42 left in the contest and Zeigler picked up his fifth foul on the Vols’ final defensive possession, Tennessee needed one final push. The back-and-forth affair featured a 14^th tie after Illinois’ Kasparas Jakučionis split a pair of free throws to even the score at 64-all with 5.7 seconds remaining.
 
Gainey inbounded the ball to commence what would be the game’s final trip down the floor, quickly received the ball back from Igor Miličić Jr. and crossed the midcourt line with 3.4 seconds left on the ticker. He snuck past Jakučionis, transitioned the ball to his right hand and scooped it softly off the glass from the left block, watching it roll around the iron and drop in as the buzzer sounded.
 
“Really, I saw the ball bounce and I just gave us a rep so everyone could get set up,” Gainey said. “Then, as soon as Igor popped open and he gave it back, I just saw my defender keep backing up and he just kept backing up. He was just dead in the water and it was too late for them to send a double because there was probably two seconds left. I was already at the rim at that point. We executed it perfectly.”
 
Logging 34:18 of action, Gainey’s performance included zero turnovers on the night. As a team, Tennessee’s zero turnovers in the second half marked its third time with zero in a frame in head coach Rick Barnes‘ 10-year tenure, including the first time in a true road outing.
 
Barnes, who considers Gainey to be Tennessee’s “sixth starter” in a sense, praised his focus down the stretch.
 
“We said, ‘hey, man, we’ve got to come through,'” Barnes said. “‘You’ve got to do it,’ and he worked really hard. They guard. It was a physical game. We knew coming in, they’re going to hit us with a lot of ball screens. Just screen, screen, screen, but that was a high-level game. But I’m proud of Jordan, because everything he gets, he’s worked for it. He’s earned it, and I’m just so glad he’s with us.”
 
Even aside of his game-winning bucket, Gainey had an excellent outing in a hostile environment. With a final stat line of 23 points, a pair of assists, two rebounds, a 6-for-14 ledger from the field, 3-of-6 from beyond the arc and an 8-of-9 tally from the free-throw stripe, the guard remained level-headed, despite the noted circumstances.
 
While speaking with the media postgame, Gainey gave credit to Zeigler for bettering his game in practice each day.
 
“Going against Zakai every single day causes me to get better each and every time. He works and we just compete each day. We’ve been competing since last April. We’re in the gym all the time and he’s giving me tips, giving me pointers about what I have to do to keep him off me, to keep pesky defenders off me. To be able to go against him every day has taught me how to keep the ball and not turn it over. And Coach Barnes is on us every single day about keeping the ball and not turning it over.”
 
Gainey was sent through the fire and he emerged stronger. He embraces opportunities to lead and will use Saturday’s experience to his advantage as the undefeated Vols round out non-conference action.