Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Tennessee -25 -110 over Wofford 

6:00 PM EST. The Volunteers open their season tonight in Knoxville, and this is a program with something to prove. Tennessee won 25 games and reached another Elite Eight last spring, and Rick Barnes is back for year 12, but nobody in that locker room has forgotten the exhibition trip to Duke on October 20, a 103-63 beating where the Vols shot 33.9 percent from the floor and 22.2 percent from deep. Season openers at home don't usually come with an edge to them. This one does, and a Southern Conference visitor is walking straight into it.

The reason this Tennessee team can turn an opener into a rout is that Barnes finally went out and bought a bucket. Only two players are back from last season's roster, DeWayne Brown II and Troy Henderson, and neither was a factor, so the Vols rebuilt through the portal — headlined by Juke Harris, the Wake Forest transfer who averaged 21.4 points and 6.5 rebounds a game last season while shooting 33 percent from three. Tennessee's defense has never been the question under Barnes; it's been the half-court dry spells when a good team takes away the first option. Harris is the high-level, go-get-one scorer this program has been missing for years, and now that firepower gets layered on top of a defense that reloads on pride alone in this building, where the Vols went 14-3 last season.

Wofford is a likeable mid-major story walking into the wrong building on the wrong night. The Terriers won 19 games last season, finished second in the SoCon, and should be in the mix near the top of that league again behind East Tennessee State and Furman — one of the more fun small programs in the South. But Kevin Giltner's second-year team brings back just four players, only two of them starters, and its three leading scorers are gone. Chace Watley, a preseason all-conference pick, and Brian Sumpter carry what's left of the rotation, and the reinforcements include Jacob Daniels, the Peach Belt Freshman of the Year stepping up from Division II, where he averaged nearly 14 points and six assists a night. That's a fine SoCon backcourt in February. In an SEC arena, on opening night, against a top-20 defence, it's a group being asked to grow up in public.

The pressure starts on the first possession and never lets Wofford's young guards breathe, the Terriers' habit of digging early holes against ranked opponents — they've dropped six straight against AP-ranked teams and lost the first half in the last eight of those games — shows up again, and the margin builds in waves as Barnes runs fresh athletes at them for 40 minutes. Tennessee has won 13 straight home games in this ranked-versus-unranked setup, and with Harris giving the offense a finisher it hasn't had, the Vols figure to do some major carnage on opening night. .

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