KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee men’s basketball team is atop both major national polls, it was announced Monday afternoon.

Tennessee (8-0) climbed two spots to No. 1 overall in both the Associated Press Top 25 poll and the USA TODAY Coaches poll. It is only the second team, joining Kansas, to take the top spot in both polls this year.

This marks the sixth time in program history that Tennessee has been ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll in three different seasons. The volunteers took top spot once in 2007/08 (February 25) and four times in 2018/19 (January 21, January 28, February 4 and February 11). This marks the earliest the program has reached the top of the poll and the first time it has done so outside of conference.

Five of Tennessee’s six all-time No. 1 AP ranked teams are under the direction of the head coach Rick Barneswho is now in his tenth year at Rocky Top. Over the last seven years (2018-25), the Volunteers were one of only seven programs, along with Baylor, Duke, Gonzaga, Houston and Purdue, to be ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll in multiple seasons.

This is the 65th consecutive week the Volunteers have participated in the AP Poll, a period that spans four campaigns and extends to the 2021-22 preseason poll. The mark is 28 weeks longer than the program’s previous record and is the third-longest active record in America, behind only Houston (91) and Kansas (70). No other school is even 50+, while the closest SEC team is Kentucky (27), ninth nationally and 38 weeks behind Tennessee.

The Volunteers are in the AP top 15 for the 39th time in the last 42 publications as of November 28, 2022. Tennessee now has 61 AP Top 10 nominations in Barnes’ tenure, including 29 in the Top 5, the latter mark 12 more than the program’s total before his hiring. The Volunteers also now have three times as many AP top-two finishes (six) under Barnes as they did before he arrived in 2015 (two).

Barnes has led Tennessee to an AP top-five finish in each of the last four seasons, a mark only Kansas can achieve. He has also led the Volunteers to an AP top-six ranking in each of the last five years, a record only matched by Alabama, Houston and Kansas.

Tennessee won its only game last week and posted a commanding 96-70 victory over Syracuse in the SEC/ACC Challenge at Food City Center on Tuesday behind a game-high 26 points from a fifth-year guard Chaz Lanier. The Volunteers were one of just two teams in last week’s AP top eight that didn’t lose last week, including the only one in the top five.

In its eight games so far, Tennessee has led for 303 minutes and 50 seconds of a possible 320 minutes while trailing by just six minutes and three seconds. The team had a lead of at least 26 points in every game, won all games by more than 15 points, and never trailed by more than three points.

The Volunteers scored 1,544 of 1,550 points in the AP poll, a 193-point increase from last week, and received 58 of 62 first-place finishes. In the Coaches Poll, Tennessee scored 770 out of 775 possible points, an increase of 51 points from last week, and received 26 of 31 first-place votes.

Tennessee is among nine SEC teams in the top 25 of at least one poll. They are joined by second-seeded Auburn, fifth-seeded Kentucky, No. 7/8 Alabama, No. 9/7 Florida, No. 13/17 Oklahoma, No. 17/18 Texas A&M and No. 19/15 Ole Miss in every poll, while Mississippi State is ranked No. 25 in the AP poll and is at the top of the vote receiving department in the coaches poll. Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri and Texas earned points with both voting bodies, while LSU did so with the coaches.

Additionally, the Volunteers, among the eight remaining undefeated teams, are once again ranked first in the NCAA NET rankings and second in the KenPom rankings.

Tennessee is back in action on Tuesday at the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York, where it will face Miami live on ESPN at 6:30 p.m.

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