{"id":672623,"date":"2026-03-22T12:55:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T12:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/672623\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T12:55:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T12:55:25","slug":"tennessee-favored-over-virginia-in-second-round-of-the-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/672623\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee favored over Virginia in second round of the NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">The Tennessee Volunteers advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, beating the Miami Redhawks 78-56. Tennessee got 29 points out of Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespie, who shot 6-11 from three-point range. Rick Barnes took advantage of an opportunity to rest Nate Ament in the second half, with the 5-star freshman only logging 18 minutes in total. Ament played just five minutes in the second half.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Tennessee now runs into Virginia, who is coming off of a 15-3 season in the ACC. The Cavaliers are 30-5 overall, taking losses to Duke, North Carolina and Virginia Tech in conference play.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Despite the uncertainty around Ament, Tennessee is a 1.5 point favorite this afternoon in Philadelphia, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsbook.fanduel.com\/navigation\/ncaab\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:FanDuel Sportsbook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;FanDuel Sportsbook&quot;}\" class=\"link \">FanDuel Sportsbook<\/a>. The total has been set at 137.5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Tennessee is looking for yet another appearance in the Sweet 16, which would be their fourth in a row. The Volunteers are coming off of back to back Elite Eights, just narrowly missing out on that elusive Final Four appearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Virginia is led by Thijs De Ridder, who is averaging over 15 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. The Cavaliers are KenPom\u2019s 16th-best team, ranked as the 16th best defense in the country. Tennessee checks in at 15th overall in the same metric, boasting the 13th-best defense in the nation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Virginia had a minor scare in the first round from Wright State, who pushed the Cavs down the stretch. They eventually pulled away though, thanks to 26 points from Jacari White.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Tennessee and Virginia are set for a 6:10 p.m. ET tip-off. TNT will have the coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tennessee Volunteers advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, beating the Miami Redhawks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,18338,77088,18339,231,772,1544,1797,2484,6936,12639],"class_list":["post-672623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-jakobi-gillespie","tag-miami-redhawks","tag-nate-ament","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-the-cavaliers","tag-virginia","tag-virginia-tech"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116272937392786521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}