How the rest of the Big Dance turns out remains to be seen, but Tennessee is off to a rip-roaring start in the NCAA tournament.

As Selection Sundays go, it was a best-case scenario for the Vols - both for what happened and what didn't:

• A No. 2 seed. Make that a stunning No. 2 seed.

A 2 vs. 15 match isn't a lock, but history shows at 95 percent, it's close.

• Playing in Greensboro, N.C., the nearest venue. Kentucky, for one, has to go all the way to Philadelphia.

Alabama has to go all the way to San Diego. (On second thought, San Diego doesn't sound so bad).

• Not playing against either Wisconsin-Milwaukee or Buzz Peterson.

The headliner is the seed. Nobody saw this coming, not a two.

A four, probably, if the selection committee members didn't punish the Vols too severely for their late slide. A five, if they did.

A three? Only if the committee has been sequestered in Mozambique the past two weeks while the Vols lost four of six games.

A two? No one in the Ray Mears Room on Sunday even considered the possibility.

And yet there it is.

"It's incredible,'' said coach Bruce Pearl.

That's sure to be the consensus from Baton Rouge to Boise to Bristol, Conn.

Incredible. Inexplicable?

Asked after the bracket was announced about UT's surprising seed, selection committee chairmain Craig Littlepage offered the obvious explanation:

The 12-4 SEC record; the No. 6 RPI ranking and No. 3 strength of schedule; the strong non-conference showing. In short, the Vols' entire body of work overshadowed the late stumbles.

"We just felt as though, in this case, that they were deserving of that position,'' said Littlepage, the athletic director at Virginia.

Or as UT senior Andre Patterson put it, "We went and played a lot of teams people didn't want to go play.''

Did a team ever get more mileage out of a December win than the Vols got out of spanking (fellow No. 2-seed) Texas in Austin this year?

As for Greensboro, Pearl said he thinks it's a gesture to UT's fans because they haven't been in the tournament since 2001.

Public disclaimers to the contrary, the selection committee enjoys side plots.

UW-Milwaukee was the pairing nobody on Team Pearl wanted but the one they all feared. It is, of course, the school Pearl, three of his assistants and two of his managers led to the Sweet 16 last year before UT snatched him away.

"Oh, man,'' said associate head coach Tony Jones, "We didn't want to play Milwaukee because we want those kids to experience success and if they experience it by playing us, we don't experience it.''

Said Pearl, "It would have been very difficult for our families. My wife was dreading it. It would have brought her to tears.

"I think the Milwaukee kids would have been licking their chops.''

Instead, the chop-licking comes from Winthrop, which earned its bid by beating Peterson's Coastal Carolina team in the final seconds of the Big South Conference tournament.

That's the same Peterson whom UT fired last year on Selection Sunday.

"The NCAA always looks for interesting matchups,'' said UT athletic director Mike Hamilton, "and I realized that as Coastal was going down the stretch.''

He also realizes Winthrop coach Gregg Marshall was a finalist for the UT job five years ago when Peterson was hired.

"Gregg Marshall,'' said Pearl, "is a guy up for jobs every year. Some search committee says, 'Who's out there that's the next Bruce Pearl?' Gregg Marshall is one of those guys.''

Pearl got the UT job by knocking off Alabama and Boston College in last year's tournament. Maybe beating Tennessee on Thursday would get Marshall his big job.

The Vols have been handed a golden opportunity. But they have to remember it's not a free pass.

Mike Strange may be reached at 865-342-6276 or strange2@knews.com.