College basketball rankings: Dalton Knecht, Tennessee are pushing for No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament

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Keytron Jordan, CBS Sports

Zach Edey, at this point, is guaranteed to be a first-team All-American for the second year in a row. There is no discussion about that. The only question is which four players will join the Purdue star.

Dalton Knecht It has to be one of them, right?

He Tennessee This standout certainly continued to strengthen his case on Wednesday with an incredible performance in the 92-84 win over Chestnut. The 6-foot-6 guard took 21 shots, making 12 of them, and finished with a career-high 39 points, three steals and two rebounds in 33 minutes. With 12:02 left, Auburn led 63-55. From there, Knecht single-handedly outscored the Tigers, 25-21, and turned an eight-point deficit into an eight-point victory.

“The last 12 minutes was one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen,” said Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, who, by the way, once coached Kevin Durant in Texas.

“Dalton is fantastic,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl added. “We thought we had guys who could guard him.”

But they didn’t.

In reality, Auburn just had guys who couldn’t stop Knecht from getting where he wanted without fouling, which is one of the reasons why northern colorado The transfer went to the free throw line 12 times. The strong performance means Knecht is now averaging 20.8 points on the season, but an astonishing 26.6 points in UT’s last 14 games, all of which were SEC contests. In other words, Knecht has been improving as the season has progressed and competition has increased. If he and his teammates maintain a pace close to this pace, the projected lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft he will soon be named Southeastern Conference Player of the Year.

Tennessee remains No. 4 in the CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 daily college basketball rankings updated Thursday morning, if only because the Vols really have nowhere else to go. At least from the perspective of the body of work, Purdue, University of Connecticut and houston Without a doubt they have separated themselves from the rest of the sport. Unless one of them unexpectedly collapses, those three schools will be the No. 1 seeds on Selection Sunday. So we’re really just looking for the fourth number one spot. And, right now, it would reach the fourth number one spot, Tennessee.

Rankings Top 25 and 1



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