Will the Tennessee Vols Win Their First SEC Tournament?

There's no better time than the present.

That's a great motto to live your life by. Apparently Bruce Pearl and the Tennessee Basketball Vols feel the same way.

After the many up's and down's the team faced throughout this seemingly forever long season, the Vols are playing lights out right now.

After losing their best player, Tyler Smith, for the season due to off the court issues, in addition to three other key contributors for a stretch that included games against No. 1 Kansas and the start of conference play, the Vols held it together and still won big games.

Some say Tennessee was never in danger of being a "bubble team," but I felt after being blown out at Florida, a team Bruce Pearl was 7-1 against, they were.

Three straight wins, including one against the No. 2 Kentucky Wildcats and another on the road against a talented Mississippi State team, the outlook is much brighter.

The Vols could not have picked a better time of the season to peak.

Going into the SEC Tournament, which the Vols have never won, the team has a distinct possibility of landing a No. 3 national seed.

Tennessee will have to win four straight games in the conference tourney to pull that off.

That's quite a travesty considering the top four teams in the SEC East went 24-0 against the SEC West. So the top two teams in the west will get first round byes in the SEC Tournament while Tennessee, the No. 13 team in the country, will have to play.

Even more disconcerting is the fact that neither of the top two teams in the west will even make the NCAA tournament without winning the conference tourney.

The way the Vols are playing lately, however, it may not even matter.

Should the Vols defeat LSU in the opening round, a virtual certainty, they would then play Ole Miss.

A win against Ole Miss would be rewarded with playing Kentucky, in all likelihood.

A win over Kentucky and the Vols would likely have to defeat Vanderbilt.

It is definitely an uphill climb, but if history has shown us anything, it's that these Vols can definitely pull it off.