The faces may change, but the expectations remain the same for the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team.
The Vols graduated their top four scorers and have only one returning starter, yet the talent pipeline heading to Knoxville remains abundant. Headlined by newcomers Nate Ament and Ja’Kobe Gillespie, UT is poised to stay in contention for the SEC regular-season title and make another postseason run.
“Being around (the players) every day, we’ve got a really good group of guys who are committed to each other,” UT head coach Rick Barnes says. “That’s not just me coach speaking. That’s one thing that’s shown that we weren’t sure about – when you bring in some sort of guys how they’re gonna blend – and they’ve done a great job of that.”
No. 18 Tennessee opened the season Monday with 76-61 win against Mercer at Food City Center. The Vols will play five consecutive home games before participating in the Players Era Men’s Championships Nov. 24-26 in Las Vegas, where they open the event against Rutgers and No. 2 Houston.
The Vols, who were picked to finish third in the SEC behind defending national champion Florida and Kentucky, gave fans a glimpse of what’s to come in a preseason exhibition against No. 6 Duke, which drew 21,678 to Food City Center. The Blue Devils edged UT 83-76.
Fresh faces fill roster
Ament, a freshman, and Gillespie, a senior transfer, are two of nine new players on the roster. Felix Okpara is the only returning starter. The 6-foot-11 senior forward averaged 9.4 points and a team-leading 6.4 rebounds last season.
Ament is the highest-ranked recruit in program history. The 6-foot-10, 207-pound Virginia native joins Tobias Harris (2010) and Allan Houston (1989) as the only top-five recruits to play for the Vols.
Given UT’s frontcourt depth, Ament has been playing exclusively on the outside to take advantage of his vast talent and all-around skills. He is trying to remain humble and grounded while transitioning to the college game despite the immense hype surrounding his arrival.
“I try not to focus too much on the future. I think that is the best way to go about this each and every day to get better in practice and how I can do that,” Ament says. “I think the best way to go about it is to just go through the season and try to win as many games as possible and I think winning will take care of everything.”
Gillespie was a third-team All-Big Ten Conference honoree last year at Maryland, where he averaged 14.7 points and 4.8 assists. The Greeneville native shot 40.7% from beyond the three-point line. Like Dalton Knecht and Chaz Lanier before, the Vols have benefited greatly from veteran transfers.
“I feel like the experience from playing last year at Maryland and playing in the (NCAA) tournament just helped me a lot,” Gillespie says. “Not too many guys on this team have had that. So, for me to bring that and have some leadership, some experience in the tournament, I feel like it’s helped me a lot.”
Redshirt sophomore forward J.P. Estrella is back after season-ending surgery on his left foot to help bolster the frontcourt, and junior forward Jaylen Carey started 33 games helping Vanderbilt reach the NCAA Tournament. Barnes says 6-8 freshman DeWayne Brown II was “the biggest surprise” entering the season in terms of how quickly he’s adjusted to the Division I level.
“I feel like this team, just size-wise, we got five dudes who can play big. We are a really big team. We got dudes like who are going to play guard that are 6-10. We are a really big team, which I feel is going to be huge for us in the long run,” Estrella says. “We lacked a little bit of depth last year, with injuries and stuff like that. So, I feel like this year, we got so many different options, whether that’s top of the wing, corner, elbow, stuff like that.”
Barnes rolls with changes
Barnes, who finalized a lifetime contract in September to remain with the Vols, is the active wins leader among Division I men’s coaches with 836 and has led the program to seven consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. The Vols finished 30-8 last season and reached the Elite Eight for the second straight year. They are one of only two teams to reach the last three Sweet 16s and past two Elite Eights.
As the landscape of college athletics continues to evolve with NIL, the transfer portal and revenue sharing, Barnes has kept the Vols positioned among the top programs in the nation.
“In all my years of college basketball, we’ve had to adapt every year to something. That just is what it is,” he says. “There’s been so many different changes throughout my career in basketball, and we do adapt, or it’s not gonna work. But where we are today, I’m thankful again. It goes out to our administration. They’ve done everything from their point of view, in terms of what we have to do to be competitive, and where we are today, and how it has to be done, and I appreciate that.”