In order to dance, Vols have some steps left

There are even a few on Tennessee's basketball team.

"It should be a topic of conversation for a lot of teams that want to go ahead to the Big Dance," UT sophomore forward Ryan Childress said Monday. "You're sitting here at the end of the season thinking, 'What do I have to do to get in the tournament?'

"That's the objective for a lot of teams fighting for their lives right now. We're one of those teams that needs to be in there, and we've got to get some key wins down the stretch."

A big one to get for the Vols (18-9, 6-6 SEC) is Wednesday at Thompson-Boling Arena against No. 25 Alabama (TV: WVLT, 8 p.m.).

But with a .500 record in the SEC with four games left, they're all big.

Alabama (19-7, 6-6), the only SEC team to earn a spot in the NCAA tournament with a 7-9 league record, is clawing for a spot of its own.

"We're both 6-6," UT junior guard Chris Lofton said. "This win could set us apart come NCAA tournament time."

While the Vols remain focused on Alabama this week, senior Dane Bradshaw said the tournament -- and UT's place in it -- remains on his mind and those of his teammates.

"It's so easy to say just one game at a time," he said. "But I think we're all kind of looking around at other people's schedules to see who's got what left. It's too easy to say, 'This one game will get us in because anything could happen.' We saw that just by beating Kentucky and dropping one to South Carolina. It's crazy how things are going."

And they'll get crazier before it's done.

After Alabama, the Vols travel Saturday to face an Arkansas team fighting for its tournament life, then host No. 3 Florida before finishing the regular season at Georgia.

The work might not even end there.

Gary Walters, Princeton's athletic director in his first year as chairman of the NCAA's selection committee, said this week the committee will look to conference tournament games to separate teams in the middle of the pack.

"I think that's fine," UT coach Bruce Pearl said. "At the same time, I'm more in favor of them looking at the body of work. They've historically rewarded teams for running the risk in the non-conference. I don't see them changing that.

"Now we have to win enough games in conference play or in the tournament to put ourselves in position for them to reward us. We still have to play our way in."

The best way for the Vols to do that is to shore up some defensive problems they had in an 81-64 loss at South Carolina last Saturday.

Before Monday's practice, Pearl had his team watch film of its defensive breakdowns against the Gamecocks.

"I don't think you'd want to be a part of that," Childress said of the film session. "We've got to look in the mirror and say, 'This is our problem. We need to go ahead and fix it for our Wednesday game.' "

The Crimson Tide poses an entirely new set of problems with point guard Ronald Steele and its two outstanding post players in Jermareo Davidson and Richard Hendrix.

Pearl likened the duo to Florida's Al Horford and Joakim Noah, a formula that's given the Vols trouble at times.

The Gators, though, are a mortal lock for the NCAA tournament.

Tennessee and Alabama both have work left to do, something that isn't lost on Bradshaw.

"You just have to go back to playing every game like it's your last," he said. "And in this case, it's playing for your tournament life. You should approach every game like that. The sense of urgency will pick up on both sides of the ball."

Technicality: Pearl said the Vols' string of technical fouls is something that needs to come to an end.

Pearl and freshmen Wayne Chism and Duke Crews were all whistled for technicals against the Gamecocks, bring the Vols' total this season to 15 as a team.

"We have too many," Pearl said. "We've just got to stop reacting to things."

Smith, Chism OK: Both JaJuan Smith (hip) and Chism (turf toe) participated in practice. Both are expected to play Wednesday.

"It goes numb, so I just don't feel it," Chism said of his toe. "I think I can play through it."