For the third straight season, the Tennessee Vols are heading to the Elite Eight.

After taking down the Iowa State Cyclones late Friday night in Chicago, the Volunteers will take on the Michigan Wolverines on Sunday afternoon with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

For all the retirement talk that seemingly surrounds Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes each spring, he’s still among the top coaches in college basketball. And once again, his team is one of the last teams standing in the NCAA Tournament.

Tennessee teaches everyone in college sports a big lesson with win over Iowa State

At one point this season, after Tennessee had blown big leads in several losses, it felt like the Vols were heading toward an early exit in the NCAA Tournament.

But what happened on Friday night — a 14-point upset win over Iowa State — is a reminder to everyone that tough moments during the regular season should never define a team.

Especially in this era of college sports where rosters experience dramatic turnover from year to year.

There’s no doubt that Tennessee went through some adversity this season. Superstar true freshman forward Nate Ament for example, took a couple of months to find his groove while adjusting to the college game (before suffering a high ankle sprain that he battled through).

When the Vols were in the middle of that adversity, it felt like they were going nowhere at times. But this is still a tournament sport. And if a good team that doesn’t have the sexiest record gets into the tournament and plays well, anything is possible.

The journey the team goes through during the regular season is where the memories are made, it’s where resiliency is built, and it’s how teams improve. But the regular season is still just the build-up to the tournament. And the goal at the beginning of the season is to play on the last Sunday in March with a chance to go to the Final Four.

Who cares about losses in February or March if you’re playing in the Elite Eight? Who cares about blown leads? Maybe Tennessee isn’t in this position without the growth that came from those tough moments.

Tennessee taught us this season (really, the last few seasons) that hot takes in February are silly. No one knows how the season is ultimately going to play out. It’s fun to debate sports, and it’s fun to dissect what went wrong for a team, but making grand statements about a team in the middle of the season when the race is still being run is flat-out pointless.

The Vols blew some games they shouldn’t have this season. They didn’t have the right mindset at times.

But here they are with a chance to go to the program’s first ever Final Four.

And that’s all a college basketball team can ask for when they set out on a season-long journey.

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