The Vols also lead 11-7 in basketball. They have won six of the last eight, including 76-58 last season in Knoxville.

Each team has been ranked three times when it faced the other, but they’ve never before met when both were ranked.

Asked about the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, Rodney Carney, a former Tiger now in the NBA with Philadelphia, had a quick answer.

“Yeah, I never would have thought Tennessee would be No. 2,” Carney said.

The Vols were unranked last season when they led by as much as 21 before beating then-No. 16 Memphis 76-58. Tigers guard Chris Douglas-Roberts said there’s no animosity from that loss.

“They beat us fair and square,” he said.

That’s not stopped Memphis from selling T-shirts titled “Cat Chow” with bits of Tennessee’s signature orange dribbling down the sides.

Pearl isn’t backing off, either.

He met with Vol fans before tipoff in his last trip to Memphis in January 2006. He will do so again Saturday a couple of blocks away from the sold-out FedExForum, where second-row seats were listed at $5,000 apiece Thursday on the Internet.

For all the heat this rivalry has generated, it isn’t hot enough to get Pearl to take his inflammatory orange blazer to Memphis.

“What’s on the line Saturday has more to do with a good instate rivalry and some bragging rights, and the winner’s going to feel real good,” Pearl said. “But that pales in comparison to the pressure of trying to do something that’s not been done in 41 years, and that’s win an SEC championship.

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