Tennessee basketball: Ranking Vols five newcomers by potential impact in 2019-2020

We’ve reached the first person with a real shot at playing this year and potentially being a starter. Yes, you heard that right. It shows how wide open Tennessee basketball’s interior is after losing so much talent. And Rick Barnes found a late signee here to help offset that, particularly with the loss of Kerry Blackshear.

Olivier Robinson-Nkamhoua, who hails from Helsinki, Finland, played high school ball here in the states out in Cumberland, Md. He was another member of the Vols’ 2019 recruiting class and listed as a three-star. But it seems like he just flew under the radar, as Barnes has actually been touting his play for a while this offseason.

At 6’8″ 224 pounds, Nkamhoua already has a decent enough size to fill in at forward, and that’s the perfect size if Barnes truly does decide to go small this year and run his system based on tempo. We’ll see how things play out, but Nkamhoua has as much of a chance to play at that four-spot as anybody.

Again, just as we discussed with Drew Pember, John Fulkerson and Zach Kent are the favorites for that role right now. But there’s a chance Kent plays center anyway, which would bring the four-spot down to Nkamhoua, Pember, Fulkerson, Kent and maybe Yves Pons if Barnes wants to go small. Nkamhoua has a great chance in that race.