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Back in time: The First Vols 15-game win streak

Knoxville and the world were a different place the last time Tennessee men's basketball won 15 games in a row.

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*

      

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