The Biggest Reason Tennessee Is The No. 1 Team In The Nation
This year's team looks to be Rick Barnes' best on Rocky Top.
No. 1 Tennessee went 2-0 last week in two huge non-conference games against Miami and Illinois. The Volunteers are now 10-0 this season, and the odds are high that the Vols will be undefeated when John Calipari and his Arkansas Razorbacks, which includes former Vols big Jonas Aidoo, come to Knoxville for the first SEC game of the season on Jan. 4.
With the victory over the Fighting Illini in walk-off fashion due to the heroics of USC Upstate transfer guard Jordan Gainey, the Vols continued to show why head men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes’ 2024-25 Tennessee hoops team is maybe his best yet on Rocky Top.
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Sure, we’re still through just ten games this season, but barring an upset to one of Western Carolina, Middle Tennessee State, or Norfolk State over the next couple of weeks, the Vols should be 13-0 and remain in that No. 1 position for an extended period of time.
Smart analytic sites like BartTorvik really liked this Tennessee team before the season, which surprised some folks nationally. Maybe surprised some Tennessee fans, too. BartTorvik’s preseason projections had the Vols as the best team in the SEC. Going into SEC play come January, the Vols should be viewed as the best team in the SEC.
With ten games in the books, I have wondered what is the best story on the No. 1 team in the nation, thus far. There are so many different ways you could elect to go with this. You could argue the second-year jumps from Gainey and Cade Phillips off the bench. You could argue Zakai Zeigler who leads the SEC in assists per game with the perfect roster around him in his final season at Tennessee. You could argue for transfers Chaz Lanier and Igor Milicic Jr. who have been a key reason why the Vols have a top-10 offense, per KenPom, through ten games this season.
However, the best story from my vantage point starts with the head coach Rick Barnes. Tennessee is starting three first-year transfers in Lanier, Milicic Jr. and Felix Okpara. Jahmai Mashack is a longtime Vol, but even his role has ramped up significantly from last season to this season. Outside of Zeigler, there is a whole lot different about this year’s Vols vs. last year’s Vols. Gone are program veterans like Josiah-Jordan James, Santiago Vescovi and Aidoo. Inside, Barnes lost both Aidoo and Tobe Awaka to the transfer portal. Barnes lost two super talented second-year players early in the season in J.P. Estrella and Cam Carr, with the former out for the rest of the 2024-25 season.
And the Vols haven’t missed a beat.
Hofstra transfer Darlinstone Dubar is back in the rotation and played huge second-half minutes for the Vols in their win in Champaign on Saturday night. Barnes had just seven players in his rotation in the Vols’ win in NYC against the Hurricanes. When Carr returns in the next couple of weeks, he’ll get another helpful rotation piece alongside Dubar, too. Even true freshman Bishop Boswell played solid defensive minutes for Barnes vs. Illinois.
Whether it’s seven, eight, nine or ten guys in his rotation on any given night, the job that Barnes and his staff have done this season is pretty remarkable. This was a team that reached the Elite Eight last season on the back of a sensational Northern Colorado transfer wing in Dalton Knecht. Instead of a regression, the Vols have found progression with the program. ESPN’s Joe Lunaradi has the Vols as a 1-seed in his latest Bracketlogy feature. If that holds, it would be the first time in the history of men’s basketball at Tennessee that they earned a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance.
Barnes and his staff made all of this change and turnover look easy. The Vols are a top-10 offense and defense, per KenPom. Lanier has been the perfect addition to the program out of North Florida – he’s shooting nearly 50 percent on threes while taking over eight a night. Milicic Jr., Okpara and Dubar are all plus-players out of the transfer portal for the Vols. Phillips and Gainey have grown into reliable, versatile players who play vital roles for Tennessee.
Tennessee plays like a team that looks like they’ve been playing together for years. Everybody knows their roles and everybody embraces them. It’s a veteran group that has gelled better in a short time than I wonder if even Barnes could have foreseen this summer. Nevertheless, the Vols are undefeated and very well may be undefeated when the calendar turns over to 2025. Barnes and his staff deserve a whole lot of credit for that being the case.
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