Somewhere, Ray Mears is smiling.

The Ernie-and-Bernie Show has been eclipsed.

The modern seasons of hopelessness (Wade Houston) and underachievement (Jerry Green) have been forgotten.

Saturday night, the Tennessee Volunteers went on the road to topple No. 1-ranked the prevously unbeaten Memphis 66-62 and it will soon become official.

For the first time in program history, Tennessee will become No. 1 in the Associated Press poll. Of course, Volunteers coach Bruce Pearl is much more intrested in winning UT’s first outright SEC title since 1967 and clinching a No. 1 seed at the NCAA Tournament. That would provide an exclamation point for what has been an overall so-so season in the SEC.

Coming off back-to-back national championships by Florida, the SEC now has a major player to make a realistic run at the conference three-peat.

If Tennessee wins out, it would be the first time the SEC had three consecutive No. 1 NCAA seeds since a run of five straight in the 1990s (1993 Kentucky, 1994 Arkansas, 1995 Kentucky, 1996 Kentucky, 1997 Kentucky). That was a period of wild basketball success for the league (two national champions, seven Final Four teams).