Tennessee basketball suffered an early season blow Monday when the program announced that junior forward Cade Phillips is undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery.
Phillips has battled the shoulder injury since last season. It had gradually improved before Phillips re-injured it this summer. He tried to push through and play early this season, but it was clearly affecting him. The junior and Tennessee’s medical staff came to the conclusion that shutting down for the year was his best path forward.
A day after Tennessee announced the news, Phillips released a statement on his decision:
“After a great deal of consideration and prayer, as well as consultation with my family, coaches and the UT medical staff, we’ve made the difficult decision for me to have season-ending shoulder surgery,” Phillips wrote in a post on Instagram. “I pride myself in giving my all for Tennessee not just during games, but every single day. I battled through this injury as much as possible, but it reached a point where surgery is needed.
“There is nothing I love more than competing alongside my teammates and I’m gutted that I won’t be able to take the court with them the rest of the season. Instead, I’m going to do whatever I can to help our group succeed. Thank you, Vol Nation, for your never-ending support.”
Phillips has started nine of 10 games for Tennessee this season, averaging 3.8 points and four rebounds per game. Tennessee will submit a medical redshirt application for Phillips and there’s optimism that he will qualify for one.
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The junior forward’s production dropped in the Vols’ last few games as he battled the left shoulder injury. The junior forward totaled just nine points and eight rebounds in Tennessee’s last four games, all of which came against quality competition. Phillips was never a high-level scorer so his lack of scoring was unsurprising. What was telling was the lack of rebounding.
“We will sincerely miss having Cade on the court and he is certainly disappointed he won’t be able to play the rest of the season, but it is essential he gets healthy,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said in a statement. “Cade did all he could to play through this injury as long as he could. We love Cade and we’ll do everything we can to support him.”
The good news for Tennessee is that the Vols have strong front court depth. Felix Okpara has started besides Phillips at center while JP Estrella, Jaylen Carey and even true freshman DeWayne Brown have proven to be reliable front court contributors.
Carey started the first game of the season for Tennessee and will likely slide back into that spot. The Vanderbilt transfer was inconsistent early in the year but has been much better over the last four games where he’s averaging 12.8 points and 8.25 rebounds per game.
Tennessee has lost three straight games coming against Kansas, Syracuse and Illinois. The Vols now have over a week off before they host No. 8 Louisville at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center on Dec. 16 in their penultimate game before Christmas.
