Ranking The Four Biggest Unknowns For Tennessee Men's Basketball This Season
The Tennessee men's hoops team is back tonight against Mercer at the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena.
No. 18 Tennessee tips off this evening against Mercer at 7:00 PM EST in their first regular season game of the 2025-26 season at the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena. Indeed, with how Saturday night’s ball game went for the Tennessee football team against Oklahoma, the return of the Vols men’s hoops team will be a welcome break for a lot of Vol fans.
There are so many things to be excited and intrigued by when it comes to Rick Barnes’ squad this season. For one, there is so much more depth on this year’s team than last year’s. For the third year in a row, the Vols seem to have found a star out of the transfer portal with Greeneville High School alum and Maryland transfer Ja’Kobi Gillespie. Another thing I wonder about is who replaces longtime leaders Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack? How does Vanderbilt transfer big Jaylen Carey factor in – is he a starter and heavy-minute guy or a rotation guy off the bench? How many true freshmen crack the rotation? And of course, could Nate Ament be the best true freshman we’ve ever seen at Tennessee?
I can’t wait to see it all play out, starting tonight against the Bears.
Let’s dive into my biggest unknowns for Tennessee men’s hoops this season.
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It seems pretty safe to say Gillespie, Ament, and Felix Okpara are going to play heavy minutes for Barnes’ team this season, particularly in the second halves. The other two spots at the two and the four have so many different, intriguing options for Barnes and his staff to experiment with, though. Who wins the minutes-crunch battle between Bishop Boswell, Amaree Abram, Amari Evans, and Ethan Burg at the two? Does Barnes start and close with different guys in these first five games before Rutgers travels to Knoxville at the end of the month? Abram and Burg are the two older guys with higher offensive upsides, while Boswell and Evans are the two younger guys with higher defensive upsides. Ultimately, who meshes the best with Gillespie and Ament on the floor will matter the most, but this is a very different dynamic than what I’d be writing about if Isaac McKneely or Rodney Rice had opted to transfer to Tennessee this offseason.
It was going to be extremely difficult for Tennessee to replace a four-year player like Zeigler this season. While Gillespie is a very different player from the 2025 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, he should be excellent for the Vols this season. Maybe even better. With the depth inside and questions at the two, especially offensively, Gillespie’s shot-making is probably the most important facet to the Vols’ 2025-26 ceiling. The former Terrapin was a forty percent shooter from deep last season, while Zeigler’s four-year average at UT was 33 percent. Interestingly, Gillespie’s shooting and assist numbers have trended up every season of his collegiate career. Is there one final level for Gillespie to reach where he’s so dominant from deep and distributing the basketball that he can push for first-team All-American honors by the end of the season? He’s talented enough to press to be one of the best five-to-ten players in the country this season, and I wonder just how good he has to be for the Vols’ offense to be good enough to get to where they want to go in March.
I have never sold any of my real estate on JP Estrella Island. I believe he has all the tools and ability to be a big-time player inside for Barnes over the course of his Vol career, but does that happen this year or next? One thing I wonder about for Estrella is how crowded the front court currently stands with the emergence of true freshman DeWayne Brown and the addition of transfer Jaylen Carey. With Okpara being one of the best rim-running defensive fives in college basketball this season, he is obviously going to get heavy minutes for Tennessee. You can maybe move Brown, Carey, and Estrella back-and-forth at the four and five at times, but Okpara is a five who had the highest block-shot percentage in the SEC last season. Estrella should probably play the most at the five, too. However, maybe this year he finds his footing and carves out a consistent role in Barnes’ big rotation. Then, next year, after Okpara, in all likelihood, moves on, Estrella has the opportunity to become the heavy-minutes getter at the five. I am simply very curious how Barnes uses Estrella this season.
Freshman Nate Ament is going to play a whole lot of basketball for the Vols this season. That is obvious, but who else? How many other true freshmen earn Barnes’ trust and find consistent roles on this team? Tennessee obviously has Final Four aspirations, and they’re deep across the board with talent both younger and older. Does freshman guard Troy Henderson’s shot-making from deep earn him the backup guard spot behind Gillespie? Does Evans prove to be the best on-ball defender for Tennessee and get consistent minutes? Does the biggest wildcard in Brown continue his ascent and pass somebody like Carey in the rotation? It is a whole lot for Barnes to balance this season, but I do think it’ll be fascinating to see which of the three other freshmen besides Ament earn consistent minutes because all three have the potential to be core pieces of the next wave of multi-year stars for the Vols. Someone will, maybe a couple will. That’s super fascinating, too.