It’s no surprise that five-star freshman Nate Ament has faced his fair share of struggles during the first two months of his collegiate career. That’s part of adjusting to life in big time college basketball for a lanky freshman.
Tennessee wrapped up non conference play Tuesday night with a 105-54 victory over South Carolina State in Knoxville. Ament scored an efficient 16 points on 10 shots while adding seven rebounds.
Meeting with the media after the game, Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes predicts Ament to follow a similar path to a former Vol now that SEC play is here.
“(Assistant coach) Steve McClain reminded me of, we were in conference play against Texas last year,” Barnes said. “Start of the second half, we ran a play for Chaz (Lanier) and he didn’t shoot the ball and we took him out, but from January until the end of January, Chaz made just incredible strides and I think we’ll see the same thing out of Nate.”
Lanier set the world on fire last season in non conference play and that continued into the SEC opener when he scored a 29 points in a win over Arkansas. But Lanier ran into some troubles in conference play after that before finding his footing down the stretch of the season.
Ament enters SEC play averaging 15.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. He’s been worse against power five competition, averaging 13.7 points and six rebounds in those six games. Tennessee is looking for him to avoid the early SEC play setbacks that Lanier had a season ago while repeating the improvement Lanier had over the course of conference play.
“He’s like every guy, the slate’s clean for us as a team,” Barnes said. “Everybody’s numbers are gonna get rewound here and I expect him to be the guy that I know he is. But he’s so much more. I mean he’s a terrific passer.”
Tennessee coaches have talked about Ament having some of his best practices of the season as of late. The 6-foot-10 wing showed aggression that Tennessee needs from him against South Carolina State including an aggressive dunk in transition.
“That’s what we need every night,” freshman Amari Evans said. “If Nate gonna dunk the ball like that every night, I’m rocking with Nate every night.”
Nate Ament drops the hammer. pic.twitter.com/it5UUaQUUs
— Ryan Schumpert (@rschump00) December 31, 2025
The challenge will be significant for Ament and Tennessee from the jump of SEC play. Arkansas has a number of athletic and long forwards that they can throw at Ament. Tennessee’s January includes trips to Arkansas, Florida, Alabama and Georgia as well as home games against Kentucky and Auburn.
Tennessee has the weapons to be good without Ament, but to reach their ceiling they need Ament improving and playing at a high level. Focus will be on those early strides that Barnes anticipates Ament making.
