Tennessee basketball’s roster for the 2025-26 season is almost set with the Vols having just one remaining scholarship to work with at the moment.
Rick Barnes and his staff had a lot of work to do this offseason to replace four starters and five of their top six players from a year ago. The task was tall but Tennessee did a strong job of keeping its few returning players and building a competitive roster around them.
However, Tennessee did not Impress one college basketball analyst with the work they did. The Field of 68’s Rob Dauster and Jeff Goodman recently rated their top 10 losers of the offseason with Dauster including Tennessee on his list at No. 7.
If that ranking seems hard to justify, know that Goodman was in the same boat. Before Dauster could explain his logic, Goodman interrupted and expressed his disagreement.
“I don’t like that,” Goodman said. “That’s a bad take.”
“They got one of the best transfers in the portal in Ja’Kobi Gillespie. They got one of the best freshmen in the country in Nate Ament, who we both kind of are skeptical of because of his body type but he’s still super super talented. To me, Cade Phillips is going to move into a bigger role. He’s tough, hard nosed. A Rick Barnes type player with Felix Okpara who had a pretty good year last year.”
Gillespie, who averaged 14.7 points and 4.8 assists while earning Third Team All-Big 10 honors at Maryland a season ago, was the Vols’ prized offseason addition. The transfer point guard and five-star wing Nate Ament project as Tennessee’s lead dogs.
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Combine those two perimeter players with a deep front court and there’s reason to be optimistic about Tennessee. Explaining his selection, Dauster stated that he doesn’t hate Tennessee’s prospects this coming season but expects them to take a step back compared to where they’ve been in recent seasons.
“I want to put this into context,” Dauster said. “I think Tennessee is a top 20, top 25 type of team. They’re going to be in the tournament. There’s a good chance they end up being a four or five-seed. I could see them in the Sweet 16. My expectation for Tennessee, at this point, based on what Rick Barnes has done the last five years is they should be in the conversation for top 10. They should be, at some point in the season, ranked in the top five. We should have them as a potential SEC title contender and I just don’t think that they’re that.
“That’s why I wanted to highlight them. I think Tennessee is going to be good this year. My expectation for them is that they’re going to be one of the best teams in the country and I don’t think they’re going to be that with the roster they put together.”
One area Dauster seems to be undervaluing is Tennessee’s development. The longtime college basketball analyst and writer was underwhelmed with the transfer portal additions. If the Vols’ returning front court players take a step forward then Tennessee could have a well balanced and highly talented team that spends much of the season in the top 10.
Most way-too-early college basketball rankings have Tennessee ranked between No. 10 and No. 25 ahead of Barnes’ 11th season in Knoxville. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had Tennessee as a three-seed in his latest bracketology projections for next season.
Check out the full conversation between Dauster and Goodman about the losers of the college basketball offseason here.
