ATLANTA — Maybe a new look will change the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team’s Southeastern Conference tournament fortunes.

The Volunteers are sporting new black shoes today. Every player except senior guard Chris Lofton has the same ones.

“He won’t wear them unless they have a strap,” one UT official said. “So, you know, we ordered one.”

Personally, I think someone should have made all the players wear black socks with the black shoes. White socks on top of black shoes makes some of the players look like old men mowing the grass, in my humble opinion.

But have no fear, Vols fans. I just saw sophomore Wayne Chism in the tunnel asked if he could ballroom dance in his new kicks.

“You know it,” Chism said.

Chism, in case you didn’t know, (http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/mar/12/big-dance-star/), is allegedly excelling in his ballroom dancing class this semester.

Maybe the shoes will spark some change for UT in the Georgia Dome — which has spoiled many seasons for both basketball programs, as well as the football team.

Other history doesn’t sound much better. The Vols haven’t beaten a team three times in one season since 1986-87. Their last two tries — 1999-2000 and 2005-06 — resulted in SEC tournament losses to South Carolina.

12:45 p.m. UPDATE****

It appears the three players wearing white socks with black shoes are the three Smiths — JaJuan, Ramar and Tyler. They’ve done this several times this season with black socks on white shoes, another combination I wouldn’t recommend wearing out on the town.