Hello, everyone, and happy turkey week! I hope everyone gets some good family time in.

My Tennessee homer picks have been successful thus far in NCAAF even with a sub-par, but improving, Volunteer team. I'm excited about basketball season, even with the SEC trying to ruin us! The Vols know they have to get these key wins at the beginning of the season to pad their record for the suspension Pearl must serve in the first 8 SEC games (). I've stayed away from the Vols thus far, but I feel this is the spot to take them. The basketball team has had a key injury in Melvin Goins, but the youngins have really stepped up in his absence. However, today Goins is listed as Probable, so I feel pretty good about it. Scotty Hopson is beginning to play up to potential, and our star freshman Tobias Harris has been outstanding.

On the other side of the court, we have VCU, who just had a convincing win over Wake Forest (who looks terrible this season). VCU has put up a lot of points and shot at a high percentage, but they have yet to run into a team like Tenn. Tenn has yet to be truly tested, but they've played teams who are better than VCU has played. Tenn has not allowed teams to shoot at a high FG% (37.4% to date), and they've certainly played more defense than VCU.

Again, I don't crunch many numbers when I pick Volunteer games, but I didn't expect this line to be at Tenn -3.5 -- more like Tenn -6. I see this one going down to the last few minutes of the game because the Vols love to scare me. Free throws and late play will put the Vols on top by 6-9 pts in this game.

Tenn -3.5

Because Tenn scares the bejesus out of me late in the games, I may buy this line down to 3. Either way, the posted play is -3.5 GOOD LUCK AND GO VOLS!