Tennessee began the transfer portal period by signing Belmont graduate transfer Tyler Lundblade, a 6-foot-5 sharpshooter with unconscious three-point power, back in early April. In the time between now and then, the Vols’ roster has gone through some massive changes. Lundblade sat back and watched as Tennessee lost six players from the previous team, but also as it picked up seven additional portal pieces.
Lundblade’s signing with Tennessee was ultimately the first domino to fall in a stretch that’s led the Vols in building the second-ranked transfer portal class in the country, filled with Top 100 prospects such as Juke Harris and Terrence Hill Jr.
Six of Tennessee’s incoming players land in 247Sports’ Top 100 player rankings, including three in the Top 25: Juke Harris (No. 8), Terrence Hill Jr. (No. 19), Jalen Haralson (No. 25), Dai Dai Ames (No. 53), Tyler Lundblade (No. 59), and Miles Rubin (No. 95). Center Christian Fermin and small forward Braeden Lue round out Tennessee’s eight-man class.
“We’ve brought in a bunch of guys that can score the ball and are dangerous,” Lundblade said during an interview on The RTI Low-Down. “I think the beauty of it is we all do different things. I don’t think we really have two similar players, in a sense. I think that makes us really diverse, really well-rounded. On any given night, you’ve got one, two, three, four guys that can go get you 20. I think those are teams that win late in the year when you’ve got to have different guys step up.”
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Out of the eight-man class that Tennessee has signed, four averaged 15.0 points or more during their previous season. Juke Harris averaged 21.4 PPG at Wake Forest, Terrence Hill averaged 15.0 PPG at VCU, Dai Dai Ames averaged 16.9 PPG at Cal, and Lundblade averaged 15.6 PPG at Belmont. Lundblade sees this as a group that can evolve and adapt in both the short-term and the long-term stretches of a season.
One critique of the Vols’ roster is that it brought in a lot of highly-touted scorers, but there’s only one ball to go around on the game court. Lundblade doesn’t see that as a disadvantage, but instead something the team can capitalize on.
“I think that’s the attractiveness of our team and why it was so easy to get guys here,” Lundblade said. “Selfishly, I think I’m the best shooter in the country. That opens the floor up, especially for guys that penetrate and get downhill. And now you add all these guys on this team. We all do different things, but we can all go get 15 or 20 any night… In this day and age, to get deep in the tournament, you’ve got to have three, four, five guys that can go get it any night. Because you just can’t rely on one or two guys for the entire year. Sometime in March, something’s going to happen, somebody gets hurt, somebody has one off night, and there’s your season. But if you’ve got, you know, 6,000 points scoring coming in, I think you’re in a really good position to win games.”
Check out Tyler Lundblade’s full interview on Sunday night’s episode of The RTI Low-Down with Chris Low and Ryan Schumpert below:
