Tennessee basketball loaded up this offseason in the hope of breaking through to the program’s first Final Four. This comes after Rick Barnes has led the Vols to three-straight Elite Eight appearances.
This upcoming roster is going to look pretty different than last year’s quarterfinalist, though. UT only returns DeWayne Brown II and Troy Henderson as contributors from 2025-26 and fills the rest of the roster through strong transfer portal and high school recruiting.
The result is a considerable amount of hype as summer practice marches on. However, despite some having the Vols in their preseason top 10s, CBS’ Gary Parrish is a tad lower on Tennessee. He has UT at No. 15 in the country in his preseason rankings. This is the fourth-highest mark in the SEC behind No. 1 Florida, No. 5 Texas and No. 10 Arkansas.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL RANKINGS: The 2026-27 @CBSSports Preseason Top 25 And 1 has been updated to reflect recent developments.
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1. Florida
2. Duke
3. Illinois
4. UConn
5. Texashttps://t.co/Zz5W2WNoTd— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) July 13, 2026
More From RTI: Three Tennessee Players Ranked In Top 100 Of College Basketball Preseason Rankings
Tennessee added a strong transfer portal class headlined by Wake Forest guard Juke Harris. Joining him as pieces in the backcourt are VCU’s Terrence Hill Jr., Cal’s Dai Dai Ames and Belmont’s Tyler Lundblade, with Notre Dame’s Jalen Haralson also capable of playing guard or wing at 6-foot-7.
In the frontcourt, UT added Loyola (Chicago)’s Miles Rubin, Kennesaw State’s Braedan Lue and VCU’s Christian Fermin.
“I love this time of year,” Barnes said in June. “I think that when you’ve got a group of guys that wanna be good, I think they embrace it, too. You talk about being forged in fire, you know, you gotta turn it up every day. You gotta get the furnace hot, and you gotta get ’em to understand what’s coming. We know what’s coming. Our schedule, what we have in front of us.
“But yeah, I think they’ve embraced it. We haven’t had any type of attitude situation. Guys are doing what they’re doing, not only out here, but in the weight room, where there’s a lot of team bonding going on there, and just looking out for each other. We’ve got a good group of guys, but we’ve got a long way to go, like you’d expect this time of year. But up to this point, I would say we’re very pleased with them.”
Tennessee is looking to replace a trio of NBA draft picks in Nate Ament, Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Felix Okpara. The Vols also lost forward JP Estrella (Michigan), guard Bishop Boswell (Maryland), guard Amari Evans (Texas), forward Jaylen Carey (Missouri) and forward Cade Phillips (Texas A&M) to the portal.
