It took Tennessee a while to round out its 2025-26 roster, but Rick Barnes and company eventually made it happen. That final piece ended up taking them overseas to Israel, where they were able to land
veteran guard Ethan Burg. The 6-3 guard is now 23 years old, officially listed as a sophomore on Tennessee’s roster.
The Volunteers had the roster numbers at the position, but they didn’t have much experience behind Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Amaree Abram. Burg, who has done a little bit of everything overseas over the past few years, fixes that issue.
Now it’s about getting up to speed with his new teammates and adjusting to life in the states.
“Well, he’s got time,” Rick Barnes said this week as Tennessee opened practice. “You think about it, we used to didn’t really start practice until October 15th. And I go back, Santi got shoved into it right away and it didn’t take him long. But Ethan is older. He’s been around. You can easily sense his maturity. You can see his conditioning is at a level that, obviously, somebody’s just been here a week or so. He’s really good there, and he’ll pick it up quickly. Because he’s been around, he knows the game.”
Burg has represented Israel in several FIBA events as well as competing in the Israeli Basketball Super League. He was named an all-star of the league while finishing second in rookie of the year voting. Burg shot over 37 percent from three-point range last season, something that will instantly help Tennessee once the season begins in a little over one month.
“He simply said to me one night, his first night here, we had dinner and he called me and he said, coach, you tell me exactly what I need to do to help this team and I’ll play that role,” Barnes said. “And he’s mature enough to do that.”
Now Barnes will go about defining that role. With just a handful of weeks to really get going with the program it’s going to be interesting to see where he initially slots in. Tennessee has Bishop Boswell in the mix as well, along with freshmen Troy Henderson, Amari Evans and Clarence Massamba.
Tennessee hits the ground running out of the gates too, with an exhibition scheduled against Duke, then non-conference games against Rutgers, Houston, Illinois, Louisville and Syracuse.
“We brought him here because, one, we need his experience,” Barnes said. “There’s no doubt he’s got a mental toughness about him, a physical toughness about him. He’s not afraid to compete. He’ll have to learn some rules that are different here in terms of maybe the biggest one being traveling, because they play a little bit different in terms of being looser with a travel violation. But up to this point, I think he’s done a great job along with Clarence. I mean, Clarence got here late. I think both of those guys have been tremendous.”
Tennessee’s new-look roster will hit the floor for the first time in Knoxville on October 26th against Duke for that exhibition matchup. The season officially will begin on November 3rd against Mercer.
