Power forward Cade Phillips will have season-ending surgery on his left shoulder, Tennessee basketball announced Monday afternoon. Phillips has battled shoulder pain since last season but it has progressively gotten worse in recent weeks leading to Tennessee shutting him down for the season.
“We will sincerely miss having Cade on the court and he is certainly disappointed he won’t be able to play the rest of the season, but it is essential he gets healthy,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said in a statement. “Cade did all he could to play through this injury as long as he could. We love Cade and we’ll do everything we can to support him. We know Cade will continue help us this year, even from the sideline, because that is the type of person and teammate he is.”
Phillips has started nine of 10 games for Tennessee this season, averaging 3.8 points and four rebounds per game. Tennessee will submit a medical redshirt application for Phillips and there’s optimism that he will qualify for one.
Phillips production dropped in the Vols’ last few games as he battled the left shoulder injury. The junior forward totaled just nine points and eight rebounds in Tennessee’s last four games, all of which came against quality competition. Phillips was never a high level scorer so his lack of scoring was unsurprising. What was surprising was the lack of rebounding.
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In Tennessee’s first six games this season, Phillips averaged 5.3 rebounds per game. He’s averaged just two rebounds per game in the last four games.
The good news for Tennessee is that the Vols have strong front court depth. Felix Okpara has started besides Phillips at center while JP Estrella, Jaylen Carey and even true freshman DeWayne Brown have proven to be reliable front court contributors.
Carey started the first game of the season for Tennessee and will likely slide back into that spot. The Vanderbilt transfer was inconsistent early in the year but has been much better over the last four games where he’s averaging 12.8 points and 8.25 rebounds per game.
The big loss with Phillips in the front court is that he was by far Tennessee’s most versatile post defender. He had an ability to defend opposing players on the perimeter that other Vol front court players do not.
Tennessee has lost three straight games with losses against Kansas, Syracuse and Illinois. The Vols now have over a week off before they host No. 8 Louisville at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Dec. 16 in their penultimate game before Christmas.
