Tennessee basketball has the chance to use the size, length and versatility of its roster to create some really interesting lineups. When Vols associate head coach Justin Gainey met with the media this past week, he teased what one of these combinations could be.
The lineup revolves around playing Cade Phillips and Nate Ament down a position. Phillips, who is typically a four that even got time as a center last year due to roster limitations, would slide down to play the three. Ament, who is just shy of seven feet tall and is thought of mostly as a three, could go down to shooting guard.
The key to making this work is getting Phillips ready to take a step in his junior year. Defensively, there are no worries about whether he could do it. Offensively, he’s going to have to find a reliable way to impact the game. That progression has been a bit hindered due to injury, but he took some positive steps this summer.
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“I think he’s still growing. I think he’s still growing in that space,” Gainey said. “I’m not going to sit here and say, like, he’s all of a sudden a straight three-man just after a few weeks in practice, right? But it has shown us some different things defensively we can do. Like, we always know he can guard one through five defensively. And so I think the offensive piece is, again, where he would have to make the biggest jump.
“It’s been good to see him do some things this summer. And he did hurt his shoulder and missed a few weeks, so I think that slowed down that development as well. But it’ll be an ongoing process, ongoing development with him there. But having him being able to play that wing position will give us a little more depth there, but allow us to experiment with some jumbo-sized lineups if you talk about moving Nate to the two and him to the three and then playing with two bigs inside and just different things we can do. And gives coach a lot of different versatility in things we can do.”
Phillips emerged as an effective option off the bench at the forward position as a sophomore. After only playing in 13 games as a freshman, he played in 38 this past season for an average of 15 minutes per outing. In this time, Phillips posted 4.6 points per game on 63% shooting from the field. He missed the only three he attempted.
Phillips also produced 3.5 rebounds and 0.6 assists per game. With J.P. Estrella going down early with a season-ending injury, Phillips became an important piece of the rotation at forward along with Felix Okpara, Igor Milicic Jr. and Darlinstone Dubar.
Ament enters his freshman year as one of the top NBA prospects in the country. He was the No. 4 overall recruit in the 2025 class and was a consensus five-star.
Tennessee opens the season on Nov. 3 when it welcomes Mercer to town. Tip-off time and TV designation are yet to be determined. The first public view of the Vols will come on Oct 26, though. UT will host Duke in an exhibition at 7 p.m. ET.
