Tennessee basketball 2019-2020 preview: Vols backcourt

Biggest questions

1. Can Lamonte Turner emerge as a consistent true point guard? 

We talked about the scoring, ability to distribute and three-point shooting of Lamonte Turner. He has the most versatile game of anybody on the team, at least among the proven players, and his experience as a fifth-year senior makes him an extremely valuable player for Tennessee basketball. He was on Rick Barnes’s first team.

However, his elite scoring has been a curse. Sometimes he gets a bit too aggressive, and when that happened last year, the offense fell apart. You have to respect Turner’s heart, but the key to being a point guard is if he can take that next step and be patient. When he falls back, he’s unstoppable. When he presses, the whole offense struggles.

2. Has anybody emerged on the wing?

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We brought up Yves Pons and Josiah-Jordan James. There is also Davonte Gaines and Jalen Johnson. All of these guys have the potential to be wing players with their height. Pons is the one that Barnes would likely prefer because of his size.

But can anybody truly replace Admiral Schofield? If not, Barnes will have to go small with Turner, Jordan Bowden and James with Pons at the four. But if Pons or James does emerge on the wing, well there’s a chance he could have some options to at least get a frontcourt going.

3. Just how good is Josiah-Jordan James? 

We mentioned him about potentially emerging on the wing, and he is a five-star combo guard, but there’s no way of knowing yet just how good Josiah-Jordan James can be. Given his size at 6’6″, his skills sets and hype, he’s got to be pretty good.

After all, he’s the reason for UT still having expectations. But the question is whether or not he can do what Turner can do as a combo guard so Barnes has options at point guard. And it’s also whether or not he can match the scoring. We’ll see soon enough.