KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The current men's basketball team is in very rare company. The only other time UT has won 15 straight games was from 1915-1917. Knoxville and the world were a much different place back then. Here are some facts to put the historical significance of this win streak in perspective.
-Film existed back then, but the first television station wouldn't open until 1928.
-It took the Vols 23 months to win fifteen games in a row. They played almost entirely in the winter. The current team got to the record in a little more than two months.
-The streak featured the only men's team to go undefeated in a season for the Vols, a perfect 12-0.
Here are the fifteen teams the Vols beat during that stretch:
- at Louisville (30-27)
- at Louisville (20-15)
- vs. Johnson Bible College (43-20)
- at Chattanooga (39-22)
- vs. Cumberland College (54-25)
- vs. Chattanooga (31-22)
- vs. Murphy College (43-16)
- at Murphy College (34-20)
- vs. Emory & Henry (27-19)
- at Cumberland College (63-33)
- at Kentucky (28-17)
- at Louisville (25-20)
- at Centre (39-30)
- at Transylvania (32-30)
- vs. Tusculum (39-11)
Tennessee finally lost to Maryville on January 20, 1917. The final score was 15-23.
-Rick Barnes graduated from Hickory High School more than 50 years after the end of the streak.
-You were more than 40 years away from UT's first desegregated undergraduate class.
-The Lady Vols had a 10-year hiatus after winning just three games in its first eight season.
-Woodrow Wilson was the American President at the time.
-World War I continued in Europe and beyond.
-The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empire still existed.
-The number one song on the Pop Charts was Nora Bayes' war-time song "Over There"
*Credit to both Nora Bayes and Republic Records*