While a lot of rosters still aren’t completed, we have a much better look at what college hoops teams will look like next season. This includes Tennessee basketball, which had immense success in the portal.
This features the signing of Wake Forest guard Juke Harris, who ranks as the top transfer in the country via On3. With his addition, the Vols’ outlook rose with many considering them one of the better teams in the country. On BartTorvik.com, an analytics-based rankings site, it saw UT rise.
Prior to Harris’ commitment, Tennessee was the No. 22 team in the country. Now, it’s up to No. 17. This includes a 17-spot jump in offense to No. 9 in the country, but a two-spot drop in defense to No. 21.
The Vols project as the fourth-best team in the SEC on BartTorvik, as well. Tennessee trails No. 4 Arkansas, No. 5 Florida and No. 11 Texas.
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Harris, entering his junior year, is coming off a season in which he averaged 21.4 points on 44.4% shooting from the field and 33.3% shooting from three-point range. This included 87 makes on three-pointers as he proved to be one of the top scorers in the ACC with the Demon Deacons.
A big piece of Harris’ commitment and signing to Tennessee was his relationship with head coach Rick Barnes, which dates back to his high school recruitment.
“Another thing that he did that separated himself from everybody else is he came in and told me how good I was, but he also got on me about some stuff they can see that I need to work on,” Harris said. “Like turning my body more when I come off screen, turning my body facing the goal. Different things that I need to do on the defensive side, fighting over screens, making sure I’m closing out. So they showed me little stuff like that. And I seen some stuff that I needed to work on that I didn’t even know, that they had seen. So I feel like I’ll be more of a complete player going into Tennessee next year.”
Harris was the seventh player to commit to Tennessee basketball out of the transfer portal, joining Belmont sharpshooter Tyler Lundblade, Cal combo guard Dai Dai Ames, Loyola (Chicago) center Miles Rubin, VCU combo guard Terrence Hill Jr, Notre Dame wing Jalen Haralson and Kennesaw State forward Braedan Lue.
