Nearly an hour after the final buzzer sounded following Tennessee basketball’s February win over Ole Miss, sophomore Bishop Boswell was back on the court shooting free throws with his mother Brittany rebounding for him.
Boswell is a do-it-all, breakout piece for the Vols. The sophomore guard’s postgame work, with his mom by his side, exemplifies how he’s emerging as an integral part of the Tennessee program.
“How he was raised and what he’s truly about as a person, which is obviously being a good dude, holding himself accountable, working hard,” Tennessee assistant director of player development Riley Collins said of Boswell’s success. “And I think if you have those three things, you’ll go a long way, and he does that on a daily basis.”
How Boswell’s Childhood Provides An Insight Into His Success
Perhaps Nate Ament put it best following Tennessee’s February win over Ole Miss— it’s like Boswell has a magnet on his face. The former high school football player has taken a substantial number of blows to the face this season, always getting back up.
Brittany is mostly used to it by now. She’s watched him absorb many hits and minor injuries over the years, never taking him to the hospital even when other parents suggested it.
“I don’t know if part of it was [that] I was … [a] toughen up type of mom, or I knew when he was fine and he was not,” Brittany told RTI. “He’s played football. He had a lot of friends with older brothers that would rough him up. He and I would wrestle and fight hardcore, like, when he was little, playing around. And he just wasn’t raised soft, basically. … I think playing football really toughened him up more. So I don’t really hold my breath.”
It’s a sentiment that Boswell has echoed this season. Why does he like physical games?
“Because I’m not soft.”
Boswell’s toughness illustrates his intensity and burning desire to win. It’s been prevalent in his life long before he arrived in Knoxville and it extends far beyond the hardwood.
“Since I was young, I’ve been competitive,” Boswell told RTI. “I don’t like to lose. It could be Uno, a thumb war, don’t matter. If it’s a competition, I want to win.”
“When he was younger, I would have to make everything a competition to get it done,” Brittany said. “Like, I bet you can’t put those dishes up out of the dishwasher in three minutes, and I’d have the timing, just to give him, like, some reason to do it. I bet you can’t clean your room up within this amount of time. Like, he had to beat something. … I’ll tell you right now. I don’t care if he sees an 80-year old or an eight-year old on the court. He doesn’t care. He’s going to beat you.”
It’s difficult to properly illustrate the impact Brittany has had in Bishop’s life and vice versa. Bishop says they are “as close as I think a mother and a son can be.” The only child of a single mother, they are a rock for one another.
Bishop’s grandmother Sherry Spangler has also had a major impact in his life. They lived with Sherry the first two years of Bishop’s life and again from the ages of five to nine when Brittany went to massage therapy school four nights a week.
“We had a small home,” Brittany said. “I didn’t have any money. No money. And all his friends, we live in south Charlotte. It’s a wealthy part of town. And everybody had media rooms, play rooms, where all the kids go over in that area. Well, in our house, it was so small, so it was us. We had one team TV in the house. Bishop was only in his bedroom to change clothes or go to sleep. So we were just together a lot”
Brittany has been to all but four games this season. She stays at Bishop’s two bedroom apartment for home games including for five straight days between wins against Auburn and Ole Miss as snow covered Knoxville.
She cooked dinner multiple nights for Bishop as well as teammates and friends including Nate Ament, Ethan Burg and Clarence Massamba. When apart, Bishop and Brittany often FaceTime with screen share to catch up on Bishop’s latest TikTok likes.
Bishop doesn’t feel like he has experienced the pitfalls of not having a relationship with his father because of the way his mother and grandmother have supported him throughout his life. They are why he plays basketball.
They put him in his first basketball league, bought him his first goal, made it possible for him to play in AAU tournaments and become a power five recruit. Brittany and Sherry are the reason he’s in the position that he is.
Tennessee coaches rave about Boswell’s work ethic. His motivation starts with his desire to pay off the sacrifices his mother and grandmother have made.
“If I come here and don’t put my best foot forward, then it was all for nothing I feel like,” Boswell said. “I wouldn’t say [it’s] heavy. I think it’s a privilege. You know what I’m saying? I’m privileged to be in this position.”
How Boswell Emerged In His Sophomore Season
Boswell was a four-star recruit coming out of high school, but played a limited role as a freshman. He averaged just 3.8 minutes in his 28 games played while attempting just 11 field goals over the course of the season.
Tennessee’s season ended with a loss in the Elite Eight for the second straight season. With end of year meetings looming, Brittany approached Bishop the night of the Houston loss to discuss his plans for next season.
“I said, ‘we got to talk about what you want to do,’” Brittany said. “And he’s like, ‘Mom, I got to finish what Zakai and Mashack started.’ … I think Bishop felt like he paid his dues last year. And Bishop loves the team. He loves the support staff.”
It would be over simplistic to say Boswell’s emergence began then, but the 6-foot-4 guard returned to campus ready to roll. He was Tennessee’s hardest working player over the offseason, attacking the opportunity at hand as the Vols’ lone returning guard.
“He’d be in two, three times a day, really just working on getting his shot quicker,” Collins said. “Getting off the ball, shooting it, making reads, not over dribbling, seeing the game in a slower manner so he can make the right plays for people and then understanding that he’s got more to bring than just offense and defense. He’s got to learn how to rebound better, guard better, talk better, pass the ball better.”
Tennessee added Louisiana Tech transfer Amaree Abram and Israeli professional Ethan Burg to the roster this offseason as potential starting shooting guards. But Boswell beat out both for the job last offseason.
Playing between offense-first point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and wing Nate Ament, Boswell earned Rick Barnes’ trust as a defense-first shooting guard. While his offense developed, Boswell leaned into what would earn him Barnes’ trust and confidence.
“Here it’s kind of the defensive role [that] is … taking a bigger leap,” Boswell told RTI. “And [I] honestly think that’s thanks to the coaches, but also thanks to just seeing how much of an impact it can make with Shack and Zakai. People undervalue defense sometimes, but … [it] wins games just as much as offense does.”
The Vols’ defensive identity is part of what attracted Boswell to Tennessee. After losing Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack to graduation, Tennessee needed Boswell to step up and help fill the void that the two left.
It’s an extremely tall task, but Boswell benefitted from watching the veteran duo as a freshman. He learned the attention to detail and preparation that it takes to be a lockdown defender in the SEC compared to high school
“Just how they were able to sustain the effort that they played with,” Boswell said of what he learned from Mashack and Zeigler. “They didn’t just turn it on in games. Like, it started with practices and in scout, just him asking questions, him knowing to be in gaps and where the guy’s wanting to go, how big of a deal scout was. … Then carrying it over to games and the fire that they had playing in defense. I appreciated it.”
“Bishop had an opportunity that not many get to be behind somebody that’s going to be drafted just because of defense (Mashack),” Collins said. “And if you know you’re just as physically gifted as him, give or take some areas, you can have the confidence to not only learn from his preparation, how he controlled himself day to day, but how he fluctuated throughout ups-and-downs in the season.”
With more minutes, Boswell’s offensive confidence has grown. He scored in double figures six times in SEC play. Boswell is not shooting a ton of three-pointers, but is hitting them at an impressive 39% clip. He developed a midrange jumper into a weapon, scoring two clutch late-game baskets at Vanderbilt and propelling Tennessee to one of its best wins of the season.
The 6-foot-4 guard is still far from a finished product. There’s room to grow as a scorer moving forward and he needs to better limit his turnovers. But Boswell has improved and become a much better offensive player than he was as a freshman.
Boswell’s Emergence As A Leader Has Been Important For Tennessee’s Present And Future
Asked who has emerged as a leader for Tennessee this season, assistant coach Amorrow Morgan answered with a smile on his face.
“Bishop Boswell.”
Leadership was an oft overlooked question for Tennessee this offseason. The Vols were blessed with Zeigler and Mashack last season and replacing their leadership was about as difficult as replacing their defense.
Tennessee’s two best players, Nate Ament and Ja’Kobi Gillespie, are a true freshman and a soft spoken transfer. There was a leadership vacuum and no obvious candidates to fill it. But as one of Tennessee’s four returning players, Boswell knew there was a need. Filling it himself as someone who had yet to play major minutes was a greater challenge.
“I’ve tried to take on that role being a returning guy here,” Boswell said. “Kind of knowing the culture and it can be tough because I’m young still, at the end of the day, and this is my first time really doing it. … I think we kind of just have the mindset. We kind of need everyone to be a leader in an aspect.”
Leadership has been a work in progress for Boswell this year just like it has been for Tennessee as a team. While Boswell’s found his footing over the course of the season, two areas in particular have allowed him to lead.
Both relate to why he earned a key role so early this season and have roots in his upbringing. The first is the intensity he plays with.
“I think my effort kind of allows me to be a leader. If you can play hard and kind of lead by example, you have more of a voice,” Boswell said. “If you’re out here not playing hard, not diving on them loose balls, it’s kind of hard to tell people to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. So just trying to play as hard as I can so that I can be a voice.”
The second area relates to Boswell being one of Tennessee’s four returning players. It’s not about the simple fact that he’s been in the program, but his understanding of how things operate and his ability to accept Rick Barnes’ constant hard coaching.
“Coach Barnes has coached him harder than you could imagine,” Collins said. “He’s super hard on Bishop because Bishop’s got to lead us in tough times and be our toughest dude, rebounding the ball, defending. And his leadership has grown just by showing everybody that he can take how hard Coach (Barnes) coaches him on a day-to-day basis, because it can be a lot, especially for a player like him.”
Tennessee boasts a talented young core that they hope to build around moving forward the way they did with Josiah-Jordan James, Santiago Vescovi, Zeigler and Mashack.
Boswell is expediting that process, stepping up as a sophomore and providing leadership that is helping not just this team but the immediate future of Tennessee basketball.
“You got guys like Amari Evans behind him, who’s now got to look up to him and watch him practice hard every day,” Collins said. “It’s crucial that he does what he does, and he continues to grow and build on his foundation now because he’s got guys that we got to lean on for years to come that are going to look up to how hard he plays and what he brings on a day-to-day basis.”
Under Barnes, Tennessee has consistently boasted a strong culture. Boswell is carrying that forward, setting the tone for the next great Vol hoops core.
