Tennessee basketball begins preseason practice this afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena with its season opener against Tennessee Tech just under six weeks away.
Expectations are high for the 2023-24 Vols after returning most key players from last season’s Sweet 16 team before adding talent in the transfer portal. Most pundits peg Tennessee as a top 10 team entering the season, but there are still questions about the Vols.
Taking a look at five questions about Rick Barnes’ ninth Tennessee team before they officially open preseason practice.
When Does Zakai Zeigler Return? And Follow Up Questions!
This is a relatively simple question that presents a numbers of offshoot questions.
When will Zakai Zeigler return?
The message from Rick Barnes and Tennessee has been pretty simple all offseason. Zeigler is working the way you’d expect him to with the full plan of being ready for the season opener. However, Tennessee doesn’t want to push Zeigler too hard. They’re not going to rush his return and risk him dealing with lingering issues throughout the season.
Different people recover from ACL tears in different time but former Alabama point guard Jahvon Quinerly gave us a relative comparison last year. The point guard tore his ACL in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament on March 18 (comparatively about three weeks after Zeigler tore his) and returned to the court on Nov. 15 only missing a couple games in the 2022-23 season. Again, every ACL recovery isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison but Quinerly’s quick recovery provides optimism about Zeigler.
Will Zeigler be the same player when he returns?
While Zeigler wants to follow Quinerly’s lead on the time table of his return he doesn’t want to here. Quinerly just wasn’t the same player last season after returning from the injury. The quick twitch point guard had lost a bit of his quick twitch and while he was still a good player he was no longer one of the SEC’s best point guards like he was before.
The similarities in Quinerly and Zeigler’s play styles— short, fast guards who change directions in a snap— makes the question a fair one. However, my best bet is Zeigler largely being the same player when he returns and avoiding the issues Quinerly faced.
What will Tennessee look like without Zeigler?
I feel confident in this because we saw it to end last season and again in Tennessee’s three exhibition games in Italy. A number of Vols, including Freddie Dilione, Jordan Gainey, Jahmai Mashack and Santiago Vescovi, will collectively shoulder the point guard load and Tennessee will rely more on off ball movement.
The bigger question to me is how much better can Tennessee be without Zeigler this year than they were last year. Tennessee didn’t have a replacement for Zeigler’s defensive intensity or end of game ball skills when he went down last season. A full offseason working without him could have them better equipped to handle those challenges.
Will Barnes Sacrifice Defense For Scoring?
To me, the great Tennessee basketball question under Rick Barnes is this. Can Tennessee find enough offense to be a consistent top 5-10 team? The elite defense has had them in the top 25 every week for the better part of three years. But the offensive shortcomings have kept them from being truly elite.
Barnes says the right things about improving it and his offseason roster moves back it up. Both of Tennessee’s transfer additions, Northern Colorado’s Dalton Knecht and USC Upstate’s Jordan Gainey, are offense first players. The same is true for its best freshman Freddie Dilione (who’s a redshirt freshman after early enrolling in January and not playing to close last season).
Let’s throw sophomore Tobe Awaka in this category too. He averaged 13.7 points in just 17 minutes a game in the Vols’ three exhibition games in Italy. But as a freshman his deficiency was on the defensive end of the court. While there’s reasons to believe he’ll be an improved defender this season, he also falls in this group of talented offensive players who aren’t as strong defensively.
Tennessee had 10 scholarship players active for its three exhibition games in Italy. Here’s how these four players’ defensive performances ranked according to Will Warren’s Substack review of the games. Gainey (+5.5, 5th on team), Tobe Awaka (+4.5, 6th on team), Freddie Dilione (-0.5, T-7th on team) and Dalton Knecht (-2.5, 9th on team).
D.J. Jefferson and JP Estrella, two players who will struggle to break the rotation, ranked eighth and 10th respectively.
The point: the players that provide optimism about Tennessee being better offensively are going to be the on the bottom tier of defenders in the Vols’ rotation.
It’s easy for Barnes to talk about wanting to be better offensively. Acquiring players that can make Tennessee better was a more tangible and important step. Letting them play through defensive mistakes is the last unchecked box.
When the games begin and it’s tied at the under 12 timeout in the second half, it’s really easy for a coach to revert back to his identity. Barnes’ identity is putting defense first at every turn. The veteran coach has won a lot of basketball games leaning on that principle.
Will he do that this season? Or will he be more patient in trusting his offensive minded players to improve defensively, letting them play through mistakes while risking short term success to raise his team’s long term ceiling?
Can Someone Other Than Santiago Vescovi Emerge As Top Offensive Threat?
Don’t misconstrue this as Santiago Vescovi slander. Vescovi is an absolute joy to watch and it was all the more evident when Zeigler went down. Tennessee had to run its offense through Vescovi and the shooting guard never stopped moving without the ball, attracting a myriad of defensive attention at all times.
Vescovi was second on Tennessee in scoring in 2021-22 and led the team in scoring with 12.5 points a game a season ago. He’s a very strong offensive player but for Tennessee to make significant offensive improvement this season they need someone to step up as a lead scorer.
The super senior shooting guard isn’t going to radically improve his scoring totals. He’s limited in his ability to create off the dribble and score at the basket which caps his offensive ceiling.
So who can step up beside or ahead of Vescovi to give Tennessee another reliable scorer? The newcomers are the most obvious candidates.
Dilione, who is kind of a newcomer, is extremely talented offensively and can score off the dribble as well or better than anyone else on Tennessee’s roster. His offensive ceiling is the highest on Tennessee’s roster but whether he can become a go-to scorer in his redshirt freshman season is unclear.
Knecht averaged 20 points per game last season at Northern Colorado showing he can shoulder the offensive load of being a lead scorer. However, scoring in the SEC is a much harder task. Knecht showed his shooting prowess in Italy when he hit 12-of-25 three-pointers in three games. That shooting is going to show up but it’s unclear whether he has the ability to score off the dribble enough to be an elite scorer in the SEC.
Awaka is the final realistic option (maybe Zeigler too) and I anticipate his scoring totals rising more than any other returning Vol. But Awaka makes his hay scoring on second chance opportunities and unless he added to his back to the basket repertoire this offseason it’s hard to see him being the go-to scorer on the roster.
How Does Barnes Manage Rotations?
The third and final question surrounding Tennessee’s offense is how Barnes will handle rotations. I touched on this at length before and after the Italy tour and touched on many of the factors that affect it two sections ago so I’ll keep it brief here.
Tennessee has 11 players competing to be in the rotation and while it’s unlikely all 11 are in the rotation there easily could be nine or 10. That creates a tough task for Barnes to figure out what his best rotations are and who plays well together.
Managing rotations hasn’t been a major weakness of Barnes but it also hasn’t been one of his strengths and this season will be the greatest challenge in his Tennessee tenure in that regard.
There are two macro rotation questions. First, is how often will Tennessee play two big men as opposed to four guards. Barnes has shown a willingness to play four guards the past two years but it’s clear he’s more comfortable playing two big men. However, this is not a two big men roster.
Tennessee knows Awaka and Aidoo are reliable players but its third big man, freshman JP Estrella is a bit of an unknown. This should lead to Tennessee almost exclusively playing four guards in most games this season. That gives Tennessee better offensive lineups on the court but more defensive limitations.
The second is just the guard/wing rotation. Tennessee is loaded with depth: Zeigler, Vescovi, Dilione, Mashack and Gainey are all good enough to be rotational players. But is it feasible for all of them to be in the rotation along with with Josiah-Jordan James and Knecht?
The first question feeds into the second question too. The more four-guard lineups Tennessee plays, the easier it’ll be to get all of its guards minutes.
Some of these questions will naturally resolve themselves by the time SEC play swings around but this will be a storyline worth following all season.
Which Returning Vols Take The Next Step Forward?
There’s been so much talk around Tennessee’s newcomers this offseason that the conversation about the returning players has been largely subdued. But if you pay any attention to Barnes’ program you know that they pride themselves on developing the players already on campus.
There’s a few candidates here with Awaka being the most obvious. The power forward flashed his elite rebounding ability and soft touch around the rim as a freshman. He was one of Team USA U19’s best players in the FIBA World Cup this summer before continuing his strong summer with three strong performances in Italy.
Awaka is also going to be a major part of the rotation. That’s just the reality after Tennessee lost Uros Plavsic to graduation and Olivier Nkamhoua to the transfer portal.
To me, Mashack is one of the most underrated players on the roster. He was one of the Vols’ most improved players last season and found some offensive rhythm while James and Julian Phillips battled injuries throughout February.
The junior wing is Tennessee’s best defender and if he keeps adding more to his offensive game he’s going to be a real force this season.
Jonas Aidoo came to Tennessee in the same recruiting class Mashack did and has had more of a yo-yo two years as opposed to Mashack’s steady climb. But Aidoo has flashed throughout his two years in Knoxville. Consistency is the key for Aidoo. That’s defensively, where he’s been a game changer at times, and offensively where he’s been limited but has a good jump shot for a 6-foot-11 big man.
Like Awaka, Aidoo is going to get major minutes no matter what. The consistent playing time could be key for Aidoo to hit his stride.
The last candidate is redshirt freshman D.J. Jefferson— who Barnes has raved about this offseason. Jefferson’s athleticism is next level but he’s still a raw prospect. His lackluster three games in Italy combined with Tennessee’s wing depth makes me skeptical that Jefferson’s breakout is coming this season. But he is a candidate.
