Tennessee has something to prove, and it's not NCAA seeding

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Tennessee arrived in Indianapolis with a single focus and little interest in continuing the seeding debate.

Of course the Volunteers want to show the NCAA selection committee the Southeastern Conference tourney champs warrant a higher seed than No. 3 in the South Region. Yet, players had a steely-eyed vision on a new mission when they arrived Wednesday — winning a first-round game for the third time in five years and reaching a Final Four for first time in school history.

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"It was good to see us set a goal to win the SEC Tournament and achieve that goal, but we also had a goal at the beginning of the year to win games in March, to get to the Final Four and win a national championship," Josiah-Jordan James said. "It starts with Longwood."

The 14th-seeded Lancers (26-6), from the small town of Farmville, Virginia, are making their first tourney appearance. Thursday's winner faces either sixth-seeded Colorado State (25-5) or 11th-seeded Michigan (17-14), which play in the day's first game.

Still, the orange-and-white clad fans who made the short drive to Indy — and maybe even the blue-and-white clad fans who made the even shorter drive from rival Kentucky — thought Tennessee deserved better after snapping a 43-year drought between conference tourney titles.

The Wildcats are playing East Region games in Indy, turning the city into an SEC mecca for the second time in two months. Georgia beat Alabama for college football's national championship just down the road.

But the reality is seeding no longer matters. Winning — and advancing — does.

Tennessee forward Uros Plavsic (33) celebrates after the