Tennessee basketball put together one of the best transfer portal hauls this offseason, landing eight transfers including six in the top 100 of 247sports transfer rankings. Five of those incoming transfers averaged over 15 points per game a season ago and will have to adjust to taking fewer shots next season.
It’s been a common criticism of Tennessee’s offseason. Most of the incoming players are talented scorers, but there’s only one ball. It is a fair question. Four of Tennessee’s incoming transfers had usage rates 25% or higher last season. Tennessee had two (Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Nate Ament).
The Vols’ incoming transfers will have to adjust to playing with the ball in their hands less and taking fewer shots. But that doesn’t mean the incoming players can’t still be effective offensive players with less fewer opportunities.
Making an appearance on the RTI Low Down Podcast, Belmont transfer Tyler Lundblade explained why he believes Tennessee’s roster will mesh well together.
“I think the first part is we’re all coming here for the right reasons. We want to win,” Lundblade said. “Secondly, you’ve seen it done the last couple years with UConn winning two titles. Those teams were so balanced. We’ve talked about that in the office. … You don’t have to score 20-plus points a game to go be a draft pick. You go win a national championship— teams care about winning and we all understand that. We all have been at different places in our careers. Some have won. Some haven’t. But I think we all know what we’re coming here to do.”
UConn’s 2023-24 national championship team that Lundblade is referencing had five players average between 11.1 points and 15.1 points per game. The Huskies had incredible balance with four different players leading them in scoring in their six NCAA Tournament wins.
Michigan’s 2025-26 national championship team was similar. Yaxel Lendeborg led the Wolverines with just 15.1 points per game while five separate players averaged over 9.9 points per game.
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There’s inherent risk with bringing in players with the expectation that they’ll embrace and thrive in smaller roles. But that’s where Tennessee’s vetting process of the transfers they recruited is so important. Coaching a team with this level of offensive talent is a challenge, but it raises Tennessee’s ceiling and could give the Vols their best offense in program history if it all clicks.
“We all do different things but we can all go get 15 or 20 every night,” Lundblade said. “We just present so many problems offensively for other teams. All these guys can handle it and score it. We can all shoot it. It presents a lot of problems for teams defensively.
“I think that’s what you need. In this day and age, to get deep in the tournament you have 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 is going to happen. Someone gets hurt, someone has one off night and there’s your season. But if you’ve got 6,000 points of (career) scoring coming in then I think you’re in a really good position to win games.”
Tennessee has all of tools Lundblade mentioned. Lundblade, Dai Dai Ames, Juke Harris and Terrence Hill all hit over 50 three-pointers last season. Ames, Harris, Hill and Jalen Haralson are all talented at scoring off the dribble.
The Vols’ front court additions of Miles Rubin and Christian Fermin have created less noise but both give Tennessee lob threats at the rim. The challenge is to get the group to mesh, but Barnes has the reputation for getting talent to produce.
“Coach (Barnes) doesn’t want guys that are here for the wrong reasons,” Lundblade said. “They were super honest and up front with me about this is going to be the hardest year of your life. But you want to be one of the 500 best players in the world and that’s really hard. What we’re going to have to go through this year is really hard. If that’s what you want, this is the place to be. With all the guys in this class, they have really bought into that message.”
After three straight trips to the Elite Eight, the goal is simple. Tennessee is hunting its first ever Final Four. Anything short of that will be disappointing.
“We’ve been to three Elite Eights in a row but you can’t get over the hump,” Lundblade said. “I think this year, Tennessee is making a real push to get over that hump
