Texas basketball’s Dailyn Swain beat out Tennessee point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie for SEC Newcomer of the Year according to the league’s coaches on Monday. But Gillespie got the upper hand in the AP SEC Newcomer of the Year voting Tuesday.
It’s the third straight year that a Tennessee player has won the SEC Newcomer of the Year award. Shooting guard Chaz Lanier won the award during the 2024-25 season after Dalton Knecht won the award in the 2023-24 season.
Gillespie led Tennessee in scoring and assists in the regular season, averaging 18 points, 5.6 assists and 2.1 steals per game. The transfer point guard finished second in the SEC in steals, second in assists and sixth in steals.
The senior point guard was also suburb in SEC play where he averaged 18.1 points, 5.4 assists and 2.7 steals per game.
Gillespie scored in double figures in 17 of 18 SEC games. The lone game he failed to reach 10 points was last week at South Carolina where he totaled a career-high 12 assists while turning it over just one time. The Maryland transfer scored 20-plus points six times in SEC play including a 34-point performance against Texas and a 26-point performance against Alabama.
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Texas’ Dailyn Swain also had a strong case to win the award, averaging 19.6 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.8 steals per game in SEC play.
While the AP voted Gillespie as the newcomer of the year, they voted him as a Second Team All-SEC selection instead of a first. Nate Ament also landed on the second team.
Both Gillespie and Ament carried a major offensive burden for Tennessee this season. The Vols’ next leading scorer in SEC play was JP Estrella who averaged just 10 points per game. Besides that trio, no one else even averaged eight points per game.
The Vols’ posted an 11-7 SEC record which was good enough to earn the five-seed in this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville. Tennessee begins play on Thursday afternoon when they’ll face the winner of Auburn-Mississippi State.
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