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Tennessee basketball: Ranking toughest Vols to replace for 2019-2020

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 29: Grant Williams #2 of the Tennessee Volunteers and Admiral Schofield #5 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrate on the bench during the second half of the game between the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles and the Tennessee Volunteers at Thompson-Boling Arena on December 29, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee won 96-53. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 29: Grant Williams #2 of the Tennessee Volunteers and Admiral Schofield #5 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrate on the bench during the second half of the game between the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles and the Tennessee Volunteers at Thompson-Boling Arena on December 29, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee won 96-53. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images /

After its second 30-plus win season in school history, Tennessee basketball lost lots of talent. Here is a ranking of the toughest Volunteers to replace.

While Tennessee football works to try to turn around its season, Tennessee basketball is now less than a month away. And questions are everywhere with this team after losing so many players from this past season.

The Vols lost four seniors to graduation, two players two transfer and two more as early departures to the NBA. Four of the players they lost have inked NBA deals, showing just how good last year’s 31-6 Sweet Sixteen team was.

However, among those departures, Tennessee basketball lost its three leading scorers, its two leading assists men, its three leading rebounders, its steals and blocks leaders, and its leading three-point shooter. Simply put, they lost a lot.

But whose departures hurt the most? As we get set to look at how UT can replace the guys who helped last year’s team spend nearly a month at No. 1, we’re going to analyze just how valuable each of those departing players are. And we’ll base it on the incoming talent as well to weigh just how rough their loss is.

There are five players who were legitimate contributors to the Vols last year and are now gone, and those five players will be ranked based on their value and how big of a loss they are. We will not include D.J. Burns, who redshirted last year as a freshman and then transferred to the Winthrop Eagles in the offseason.

Also, we’re going to leave out Brad Woodson and Lucas Campbell, two walk-on seniors who never saw meaningful action throughout their careers. With all due respect to what they meant to the university, you can’t really break down any tangible value they had to the team.

So that leaves four starters and one solid backup who are all gone now. How do they all compare to each other? And which players have newcomers who can fill their roles? Let’s break all that down here. This is our ranking of the five toughest players Tennessee basketball has to replace for the Vols’ 2019-2020 season.

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