Tennessee has a new look after years of continuity

SB Nation

Part of the fun of college basketball is watching players grow up over the course of four years. Coaches and player develop relationships and extends beyond the basketball court, and perhaps there are

few relationships over the last few years quite like Rick Barnes and Zakai Zeigler.

Zeigler represented more than just Tennessee as a basketball player, he was so much what UT was about. Listed, generously, at 5’9, Zeigler played in 138 games over 4 seasons which is even more impressive when you know he missed 6 games at the end of his sophomore season due to an ACL tear. After going down the injury on February 28th, Zeigler was back playing November 6th to open the season.

That sort of determination exemplified Tennessee basketball over Zeigler’s four seasons. Tennessee was a team not known for its offensive prowess, instead they were a tough, physical and mentally acute team. They worked hard and made everything you did difficult to execute. There were nights when the shots fell, and on those nights the Vols were impossible to beat.

Over the last two years Tennessee was 23-2 if they shot better than 40% from three, and they were 39-4 when holding opponents to less than a 100 efficiency rating. But Zeigler is gone, and so are the 109 wins, 4 NCAA protected seeds, three Sweet 16s, and 2 Elite Eights. The Vols aren’t starting over, but they’re going to look a lot different this season with Zeigler on the floor.

Other SEC Previews:

Tennessee Volunteers

Last season: 30 – 8 (12-6 in conference) #5 overall
The Masses Prediction: 4th in conference, 12.14 – 5.86
SEC Media Pick: 4th in conference
Analytics Average: 3rd in conference, 9th overall

HEAD COACH: Rick Barnes | 11th Season, 232-109

As much as you think Rick Barnes is appreciated, it’s still probably not enough. The reality of this preview is that if Barnes were not the coach the belief in a top four finish in the league would go down at least a few pegs. But the facts are as long as Barnes is coaching in Knoxville, Tennessee should be favored to land in the top four. It did take him a few years to get things going, but in 2018 through last year there was just one season where Tennessee did not finish in the top 4 in the league.

2018 tied for 1st. 2019 tied for 2nd. 2021 fourth, 2022 tied for 2nd, 2023 tied for 4th, 2024 first, last year they were fourth.

The league has steadily gotten tougher, and Tennessee has maintained its spot towards the top of the league. At some point, and probably soon, Barnes will call it a career. When he does, the SEC will be worse off. Tennessee will also likely be worse off. What was, at the time, a lucky happenstance of a hire, has turned into the best run of Vols basketball in program history.

Best run of Vols basketball in program history? I’d charge anyone to find a better run than the last 8 years. Bruce Pearls shorter 6 year run included two Sweet 16s and an Elite 8, but just two protected seeds. Barnes has placed Tennessee into 6 protected seeds in 8 years. Pearl’s best finish was a final AP Poll vote of 5th, something Barnes has done three times, with one more ranked 6th. And the last two years were the programs best finishes in KenPom.

Barnes has been as consistent as anyone in the sport. The full chart above is Barnes building up Tennessee into what we expect from him today.

LOST PRODUCTION

10th in % minutes, 78.50% | 10th in % points, 83.01% | 10th in possessions, 82.66%

Zakai Zeigler is gone if you skipped past the first part. But with him a LOT of experience and production. Tennessee imported three major rotation pieces from the transfer portal last year in Darlinstone Dubar, Igor Milisic, and Chaz Lanier. Also rotation fixtures Jordan Gainey and Jahmai Mashack. That means the top four scorers, and six of the top 8 have graduated.

The remnants of a good roster all return, save for Cameron Carr, who entered the transfer portal mid season. But anyone else who played regular minutes came back, even if those minutes were as a scoring threat. But what’s returning are a lot of question marks.

Maybe that’s unfair to Felix Okpara, but Okpara has yet to be any real threat offensively. He’s an excellent defender, and one of the top rim protectors in the country. His usage rates are extremely low, but a simplified offensive approach keeps his efficiency up. Okpara will be a fixture in the middle. But what happens next to him in the front court is a question.

Cade Phillips was a durable defender and a quality finisher around the rim, but the key here may be JP Estrella. As a high schooler, Estrella was a highly coveted stretch four big. He’s struggled to stay healthy, and missed nearly all of last year with a foot injury. With good health, Estrella could be exactly the player Tennessee needs. But if he’s not healthy, they dipped into the transfer portal and added Vanderbilts excellent and active big man Jaylen Carey.

The prize from the portal is Ziegler’s replacement, former Maryland and Belmont guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie. As a transfer junior last season at Maryland, he was the second leading scorer for a team that made the Sweet 16. But Gillespie was the most efficient player offensively for the Terps, with an Offensive Rating of 121.6, plus an assist rate of 27.3%. And a 2.55 assist to turnover ration should fit in very well with Rick Barnes conservative style of hoops.

A lot of the offense will be centered around new talent, but especially 5-star freshman forward Nate Ament. As talent goes, there aren’t many in the country with more talent. At 6’10 with athletic fluidity to fight right in as a 3&D wing in the NBA tomorrow, Ament is still putting things together. He’s capable of making shots from all over the floor but he’s still learning how to be aggressive and a number one option. But if he figures that out this season, he’s got the talent to really lift the Vols to a national title threat.

After Okpara, Gillespie, and Ament, the rest of the pecking order is in question. Bishop Boswell was a highly regarded recruit in high school and should be due a step up in action thanks to some development time. But will it be enough to outpace Israel guard Ethan Burg or Louisiana Tech transfer Amaree Abram?

Burg is the more intriguing player if only because international players are a bit more of a mixed bag. He played in the Israel pro league and averaged 11.1 points per game last year, for the same team as Xavier Sneed who averaged 14.2 ppg his senior year at Kansas State and 17.8 ppg last year for Bnei Herzliya. If Burg can turn into a double digit scorer he’s likely going to be good enough to beat out the other options at guard.

The other big question is in the front court and who plays next to Felix Okpara. With Okpara’s offense, it’s going to be important, maybe even necessary, for the four spot to generate offense. The most offensive minded is Estrella, who has some ability to stretch the floor. Otherwise they could play Ament at the four, perhaps his more natural position. But then you’re beginning to press into the guard depth.

This feels like a lighter schedule for Tennessee and they still managed to squeeze in at least four Quad 1 games. The only game that looks like a risk to slip out of Q1 would be the road game at Syracuse, the ‘Cuse haven’t been what they were in recent seasons. The Vols join Alabama and Auburn in the Players Era, and a guaranteed game against Houston is a big opportunity. The Cougars don’t lose often, but if you beat them you’re guaranteed one of the best wins of the year. But Illinois and Louisville on any floor will be Q1 games as well. Both are expected to be top 10-15 level teams.

The SEC Schedule does them no favors with three really tough home and home opponents, plus Florida, Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi State on the road.

THE RULING

There’s a bit of trust here that may not fully exist in other areas of the league. Barnes has been so good at being so good for so many years, even if there are some questions about the roster build, you expect Tennessee to be very good again this year.

The Vols have a lot of quality here, but there are limits. Shooting, again, may be a bit of a problem for the Vols. Gillespie is a career 37.9% three point shooter, the rest of the roster just doesn’t have the attempts to know how they will perform. Boswell, Okpara, Estrella, and Phillips are a combined 2 for 39 for their career, Carey is 15-59 which isn’t a winning percentage, only Amaree Abram (35.9% for his career) has made shots with any level of consistency. So now you’re turning to international players and freshmen to make up the shooting.

Gillespie is a better overall shooter than his predecessor, Zeigler, but he’s also a very different player. Gillespie isn’t the defender Zeigler was, but hopefully his size will offset what is lost with Ziegler’s peskiness.

On top of the shooting being a question, so will be usage. Gillespie was good last year moving into the Big 10 by scaling back his usage from Belmont, it’s a common move for players who are going up to a new level to walk back their usage to keep efficiency. It worked for Gillespie, but he’s also the only player on the roster who’s seen more than 25% usage in his career at any level. The returners, Okpara and Phillips, were around 15% last year, Estrella topped at 16.9%.

This is the gamble then, that some very big unknowns will become knowns. And the most likely unknown to step into the role has to be Nate Ament.

If Ament hits the floor and looks like a lottery pick early, the Vols have enough around the rest of the roster to challenge at the very top of the league. Couple that talent with Barnes penchant for putting a top tier defense on the floor and you have a combination for a top 10 finish nationally, and a top 2-3 finish in the SEC.

If Ament hits the floor and looks like he has at times, as a guy with the potential to be an NBA lottery pick but still a guy figuring it out, the Vols have enough to be a top half of the league team. Quality, but not elite.

My Results: Tennessee Volunteers — 4th in Conference, 12-6

About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections.

If you’d like to submit your picks, click here for the Google Form we used. If you want to know your results, send me an email.

Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.

The projections: This is new! In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an indepth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.

GLOSSARY

* – an asterisk denotes a walk-on player

GP – Games Played

%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury

%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.

ORtg – Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.

BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.

PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.

For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.