CHICAGO — The calendar turned to the new year, and SEC play was on the horizon. In the conference opener at Arkansas, Ethan Burg earned five minutes and turned the ball over twice.

The first-year Tennessee basketball guard saw himself out of the rotation. He earned a total of 11 minutes over the first 11 SEC games, including six matchups where he did not check into the game. Burg was demoted to the scout team.

“Are you about ready to quit?” head coach Rick Barnes asked.

“He said to me, ‘Coach, I will never, ever quit on these guys,’” Barnes said. “He said, ‘This is the first real team I’ve ever been a part of.’ He says, ‘If I never play another minute, I will never quit on these guys. I promise you.’”

And that promise has been fulfilled. A switch flipped for Burg when he dropped in a pair of 3-pointers across an 18-minute outing against LSU on Feb. 14 — sparking a run where Burg played double-digit minutes in all but four games heading into Sunday’s Elite Eight matchup with No. 1 Michigan.

He’s coming off a 20-minute outing against Iowa State that filled a need more than stats. Burg turned the ball over just once as the primary bench handler and gave Ja’Kobi Gillespie much-needed breathers in the Vols’ toughest task yet.

“Probably the most physical game we had this year, but I thrive in those games defensively,” Burg said. “I love it. I love it, man. To me, go out there on one of the biggest stages in the world and guard really, really talented players. I take pride in that. I enjoy it. It’s amazing.”

He contributed a plus-seven plus-minus and turned the ball over just once in the win.

Burg’s reemergence wasn’t just a personal turnaround. It was happening at the same time Tennessee was figuring out its own identity.

“Coach has been really strict with us throughout the year, but I feel like now he’s just allowing us to really go out there and be ourselves, play with swagger, play with confidence, do what we worked on,” Burg said. “And when he says that, it gives us confidence to just go out there and play basketball because the talent is telling the talent level here is really above the roof, man.”

A year ago, Tennessee rolled with the same starting five each game, barring injury. That left Jordan Gainey as the odd man out, and he assumed sixth man duties for the Vols en route to an Elite Eight finish.

This year, things were far less settled.

“They just stayed connected. They’ve pushed each other. Even when we were talking about putting guys on the scout team, we didn’t want those guys in any way, shape, or form thinking that we had quit on them,” Barnes said. “At that time, we were so inconsistent, we were searching for whatever we could find. We wanted them to know we were trying to do it to get them to understand if they can get better, we can get better.

“The guys that haven’t been on the scout team, I think, made those guys realize how much they were helping them get better, as opposed to going against scout teams as much as we were doing it once we got into the season.”

Burg’s maturation and ability to do the work defensively have taken center stage in March. The Mishmar HaShiv’a, Israel, native gave 23 minutes against Miami (Ohio) in the first round, spraying in a pair of 3-pointers, including a rhythm three at the first-half horn.

“The last couple games, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him,” Barnes said. “He has maturity, and he went through a tough time. You’ve got to realize, his family has been in and out of bunkers in Tel Aviv for months now. It’s been tough on him, but he’s handled it really, really well.”

Though he only played six minutes against Virginia in the second round, Burg never let it get to him — just as he had avoided during the rough portion in SEC play and when he was placed on the scout team.

Despite being a first-year college student, the 23-year-old Burg learned aplenty playing overseas professional basketball. But at Tennessee, he’s learned what a real team looks like.

“I’m just grateful to be here, man,” Burg said. “This whole experience has been really wholesome, but I’m still hungry and I want to win.”