The college basketball preseason continues to roll on with the start of the season just two weeks away. Tennessee basketball held its first of two preseason matchups on Saturday, facing Ohio State in a closed door scrimmage at Pratt Pavilion in Knoxville.
Closed door scrimmages are semi-formal with officials, jerseys and a score. But there’s also some situational work done and coaches playing everyone on the roster and some intriguing lineups that we may not see as much when the season begins.
“Everything we talked about wanting to do in terms of making it a work day, came in with that attitude and we kept it like that,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said afterwards. “I thought both teams competed really hard. We’re both going to get a lot from it. The fact that we kept mixing lineups and kept doing things, I think in the long run will be great for us.”
Tennessee is extremely tight lipped about closed door scrimmages, not releasing box score or even a final score of the action. But the Vols did give us a quick compilation of highlights from the action on Saturday. What happened in the quick highlight video? Tennessee scores 12 baskets. Here’s how.
Ja’Kobi Gillespie throws an alley oop to Felix Okpara. Nate Ament makes a jump shot. Ament drives the lane and dunks. Freshman big man DeWayne Brown dunks. JP Estrella scores on a baby hook.
Gillespie has a left-handed contest finish at the rim. The point guard then feeds Jaylen Carey for a dunk. Ament makes a contested step back jump, Amaree Abram makes a floater, Gillespie makes a contested triple. Bishop Boswell throws an alley oop to Okpara and finally Gillespie finds Okpara for a layup.
Here’s highlights of the action here.
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scrimmage scenes 🎥
preseason concludes Sunday vs. Duke pic.twitter.com/YazyAFdJFC
— Tennessee Basketball (@Vol_Hoops) October 20, 2025
The preseason rolls on for Tennessee this week as the Vols face Duke in an exhibition game at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Sunday night. It’s a primetime preseason matchup and gives Tennessee a chance to match up with one of the nation’s best teams ahead of the action.
Tennessee then opens up its 2025-26 regular season on Monday, Nov. 3 when they host Mercer in Knoxville. The Vols play five buy games to open the season before getting into the meat of their non conference schedule with matchups against Rutgers, Houston, Syracuse, Illinois and Louisville.
