The visitors at Thompson-Boling Arena and the activity swirling around the Tennessee men's basketball team Monday afternoon had nothing to with Saturday's upset of No. 6 Texas or the program's emergence in The Associated Press top 25.

"Welcome to our world," first-year UT coach Bruce Pearl said as his players commingled with their guests of the day.

The guests included the Northwest Shockers, a local basketball team of 11- and 12-year-olds, who took the floor with Pearl's blessing as soon as the Vols concluded the afternoon's preparation for Thursday night's game with Oklahoma State. Those weren't the youngest visitors.

Turner South turned 8 years old Monday. His parents, Steve and Becky, decided to celebrate the occasion at the arena with a few of Turner's closest friends and the nation's No. 23-ranked college basketball team.

The Shockers were shooting. Turner and his playmates were collecting autographs. And Pearl was talking to a camera so enthusiastically and naturally, you expected it to answer back.

Don't get the wrong idea. UT basketball practice isn't an open house. You shouldn't show up unannounced at the arena door and expect to fill a passing lane for C.J. Watson.

Nor should you show up at Pearl's house for dinner without at least calling ahead. He's friendly, but he's not that friendly.

Or is he?

Pearl isn't just building a basketball program. He's building goodwill. And he's doing it at a fast-break pace. Six games into the season, this is such a feel-good program, you expect the Vols to practice with warm and fuzzy basketballs.

It started with the season opener when Pearl had his players thank fans for attending the game. He has a contract. He can't be voted out of his job at midseason. Yet he embraces fans with the fervor of a politician on election eve.

The Vols have thanked their fans and beaten their opponents. All of them.

A 5-0 record against schools marked by hyphens or directions elicits more shrugs than hugs. But a 17-point victory over a sixth-ranked team on its home court will turn the heads of even top-25 voters.

Introducing the unbeaten, 23rd-ranked Tennessee Vols ...

How odd that will sound in Oklahoma City on Thursday night, especially against a program with Oklahoma State's basketball pedigree. Tradition aside, the Cowboys are neither unbeaten nor ranked before this topsy-turvy matchup.

But Oklahoma State will have to wait. A program with UT's track record shouldn't simply move on after upsetting a top-10 team. Victories like that are worthy of celebration and examination.

As career victories go, this one was in the top five, said Pearl, whose top five also includes victories over Alabama and Boston College in last year's NCAA tournament when he was the head coach of UW-Milwaukee.

After beating Texas, he looked beyond his own rA(C)sumA(C) and thought about how much the victory meant to the players who suffered through a 14-17 a year ago; to Mike Hamilton, the athletic director who hired him; and to Bob Kesling, the play-by-play announcer who has described the mishaps for a program that has lost almost 15 games a season for the last four years.

"It was a big win for Bob, a big win for Mike, a big win for me," Pearl said.

The coach was ready for anything against Texas. He told his players when the Texas players looked at them in pregame warm-ups, he wanted the Longhorns to wonder what the Vols were so happy about. He told News Sentinel basketball beat reporter Mike Griffith several days earlier that he had a quote in case the game went badly.

"Pat (Summitt) must have really made them mad," he would have said, referring to the Lady Vols' 102-61 victory over the Longhorns.

How's that for preparation: a plan for victory and a quip for defeat?

Right now, Pearl can't lose. So little was expected of his first team, if it merely showed up on time for games, fans would have delivered heartfelt applause. The team has responded to those low expectations by raising them dramatically.

"We've created a monster," said Pearl, sounding more ecstatic than burdened.

What's a monster or two when you're on a monstrous roll like this?

His team is unbeaten. His recruiting class is rated as one of the nation's 10 best. His older son, Stephen, recently hit a game-winning basket for his West High School team. His older daughter, Jacqui, sang the National Anthem before UT's season opener.

What's next? Will his wife, Kim, solve Knoxville's traffic problems?"

"I keep waiting for the bubble to burst," Pearl said.

But he said it with the confidence of a man who already has another bubble in the works.