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MEMPHIS — Karl Schledwitz calls it, without a hint of sarcasm, “one of my greatest accomplishments.”

Last summer Schledwitz and two fellow Memphians on the University of Tennessee board of trustees hatched an audacious plan to bring other trustees to Memphis to visit the UT Health Science Center.

Join us in discussing ways to improve the medical school, the Memphians said, and we will feed you dinner and take you to the Vols’ Feb. 23 game with the University of Memphis.

“We knew, even then, it wasn’t going to be easy,” says Schledwitz, chairman of The Southland Companies and a 1973 graduate of UT (and 1977 grad of U of M’s law school). “We started calling suite-holders asking if they would co-host UT officials from around the state for a game and a lot of them said, ‘Yeah, sure. What date?’ And we would say, ‘Put us down for Feb. 23.’ Many had no idea of the significance the date.”

With Memphis now ranked No. 1 in the polls and Tennessee No. 2, few in town are not aware of the enormity of Saturday’s game at FedExForum.

And Schledwitz, George Cates and Rhynette Hurd have managed to assemble 56 tickets for their fellow Vols.

“I confess, I am proud of what we’ve done,” Schledwitz says. “And we are still hunting for tickets. My wife asked me if she was still on the list. I said, ‘It is questionable. We’ll have to see how it works out.’ ”

If not, she could turn to a source other desperate fans are utilizing: eBay.

Tigers season-ticket holders, students and ticket brokers have been placing tickets onto the online auction site, and the market continues to yield greater returns. Tickets in the upper reaches sold for $250 on Sunday night, ran closer to $300 on Monday night and, by the end of the workday on Tuesday, a set of eight upper-level tickets were selling for more than $400 apiece.

General admission seats — student tickets or student-guest tickets — were running for more than $100 apiece, even with detailed instructions indicating hours-long waits and no guarantee of admission.

Asking prices for club-level seats in the lower level were running as high as $5,000, with a $7,500 asking price for two front-row seats “right next to” Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson. Selling tickets for above face value is legal in Shelby County.

Don’t bother calling Johnson, by the way. He’s got nothing for you. His secretary, Judy Davis-Lewis, said, “It’s like the whole world is sitting on top of us, asking for tickets.”

Johnson saw the weather forecast Saturday and offered a solution to Memphis coach John Calipari: “I said, ‘Let’s just put that baby in the Liberty Bowl.’ ”

ut even Johnson admits his office helped steer an iconic Volunteer to seats in a suite — former Vol quarterback Peyton Manning, whose pursuit of a ticket was such that Vol coach Bruce Pearl asked Calipari earlier this week if he could help.

Calipari, ever the entrepreneur, claims no bitter feelings toward Tiger fans who are selling tickets.

“I would tell anybody, if they can pay for their child’s tuition for a year with their tickets, sell it,” Calipari said. “Get yourself a big-screen TV ... this is like a Super Bowl ticket.”

One prominent Tiger booster, Regions Morgan Keegan executive Rick Spell, sees Saturday’s game as a gift from Calipari to the city, however, and is pleading with Tiger fans not to sell tickets. Spell, like others in Memphis’s highest booster class, the Ambassadors (minimum donation required: $500,000), gets two dozen season tickets, and he has tried assiduously to avoid giving tickets to anyone with orange inclinations.

“As a fan, this is what you live for,” Spell said. “It is such a mental release to be a part of it.”

One eBay seller, Shelly Thomas of East Memphis, got $560 for two upper-level tickets. She and her husband could not get a babysitter for their 18-month-old child for the 8 p.m. game.

Thomas, who admitted feeling guilty, assumed the buyers were Vol fans. Her father, who sits on the same row, demanded she find out.

So she e-mailed them.

Their reply: “Tigers all the way!“

Thomas said she shrieked: “I was so excited they were Tigers fans.”