When Tennessee Basketball fans watch the Volunteers roll out onto the court for their regular-season opener next season, they’ll see a completely different unit than the group that left the court during the Elite Eight this past spring. Tennessee saw three players enter the NBA Draft and six leave through the transfer portal, including starters and role players such as Jaylen Carey, Bishop Boswell, and Amari Evans.
The Vols only return two players from last year’s team, with sophomore forward DeWayne Brown and sophomore guard Troy Henderson.
That’s why it’s so unsurprising to see Tennessee third-to-last in the SEC’s returning production charts. As CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein posted to Twitter on Wednesday, the Vols only return 8.2% of their scoring from last season. But that’s exactly what happens when your top six scorers and nine of your top 11 scorers aren’t on the roster anymore, including guys such as Nate Ament, Ja’Kobi Gillespie, and Felix Okpara.
Only South Carolina (7.2%) and LSU (0.0%) have lower returning production than Tennessee in the 16-team SEC.
But as anyone following Tennessee knows from watching the moves this offseason, it’s not concerning in the slightest. In fact, Tennessee’s eight-man transfer portal class was actually built on the opposite of this exact principle. Rather than paying for the same retention from last season, Rick Barnes and his staff opted to spend their NIL money on new production from the transfer portal.
“We were looking for production over retention, and I think we’ve done that,” Barnes said in April about the Vols’ portal mindset. “But these guys are, they’ll build their own team. You got to do it every year anyway. It doesn’t matter if you got guys coming back, a bunch of guys, you still have to build a new team every year.”
SEC returning scoring by percentage:
Florida 87.1%
Georgia 47.1%
Auburn 42.2%
Oklahoma 42.2%
Alabama 36.7%
Mississippi State 33.4%
Vanderbilt 29.2%
Ole Miss 27%
Texas 20.9%
Kentucky 18.4%
Texas A&M 15.4%
Arkansas 15.3%
Missouri 14.4%
Tennessee 8.2%
South Carolina 7.2%
LSU 0%Advertisement— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) June 17, 2026
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Tennessee brought in eight new players from the transfer portal over the last few months. The Vols signed six Top 100 players from 247Sports’ transfer portal rankings, including 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). Five of Tennessee’s incoming portal players averaged 15.0 points or more per game last season at their previous schools.
Last week, ESPN named Tennessee’s transfer portal class as the best group in the nation.
“Rick Barnes clearly emphasized offense in the portal,” Jeff Borzello wrote. “Seven of the team’s eight incoming transfers averaged double figures at their previous schools — Harris, Ames, Haralson, Lundblade and Hill are each considered high-level offensive players. Harris was an elite scorer last season; Ames and Hill are playmakers with the ball in their hands; Lundblade is a terrific off-ball mover and shotmaker; and Haralson is highly productive inside the arc. There will be a learning curve for the Vols’ newcomers on the defensive end, but Rubin has been an excellent shot blocker and rim protector for three seasons.”
There’s a ton of excitement around Tennessee’s fanbase about what this new team can be next year, and much of that is because of the offensive optimism that hasn’t always been there in the past. While the Vols have had a couple of guys who can offensively take over a game in the last few years, it feels like this year’s team has double or triple that amount at its ceiling. And without some serious developments from last year’s pieces, it wouldn’t necessarily have felt like that if the Vols chose retention over portal production this offseason.
